The Lone Sword
by drantidote
Summary: This story follows an Ash with a lost past, confronted with an unknown adversary on a mission that leads him to uncover mysteries much more deep and painful than he could have ever bargained for. [Rated T for swearing and bloody violence] A rather large project that I've worked on, just thought I'd publish it here. Enjoy, everyone!
1. Prologue

**PROLOGUE**

He hated this place. The light was dim, and the table he sat at stank with the rank, metallic smell of a medical ward. Even the air was repulsive, dank with the stench of rotten wood and smoke from the cigars that still glowing from shallow puffs of displeasure blow from between the lips of the men in front of him.

Ten pairs of eyes swept across the room, each one leering at another with equally cold, soulless glares. Then, one by one, they lazily shifted their gaze onto him, boring into him, sizing him down. Well, they tried. Even without his suit, he towered above the table at which they hunched over, unmoving. He kept still as they raked across him, searching tirelessly and incessantly for any lapses in his composure, any cracks that could be widened to expose a possible weakness. These men did not accept weakness.

A single bead of sweat formed on his scalp and trickled down the side of his metallic skull, dripping into his clasped robotic hands. He took a reassuring breath, and spoke firmly.

"I have a request."

The one with poisonous green eyes growled from his left.

"What makes you think you have the right to return here?"

As was, indeed the thought on everyone's mind.

"Nothing," he replied, unblinking. "However, I may be able to sway your somewhat… _distrusting_ opinion of me."

They all shared a reluctant sideward glance before the one that sat at the right edge droned in the same voice as the rest; callous and dead. "You wish to bargain with the Council? I see that the years have taken your sense away with them, General." chided the one on the right. This one wore a crooked smile, one that glowed under the sickly light. A stray fly buzzed overhead, weaving and ducking in and out of the tenebrific gloom that coiled around it.

He gritted his blackened teeth and swallowed the insult forming in his throat. A mere slip of the tongue would mean the end of him. Processed, scanned, and destroyed. And then, he would disappear; like ashes, cast away into the wind.

"I believe we should show our hands before we rush to conclusions, no?"

A grunt and a few sighs sounded from the group. He found himself containing a grin.

"Very well. Speak."

"I have a plan." His tone was constant, despite the gravity of his words. "One that will find us the Dojos."

One of them roared back in laughter, joined by the grainy chuckles of his associates.

"You think that YOU, of all people, can find them? Do not take us for fools, General, we have tried many times ourselves and failed, and we have armies that dwarf the size of your miserable scrap of half-breeds." The laugh that followed was without life, and his miserable features were etched into his skull, which already were pressing against the blue veins that criss-crossed across his face. The man's augmentations whirred as he pushed himself up from the table with a dissatisfied grunt.

"This is a waste of time."

"Wait."

Regret made itself known, balling in his sore throat, but he had to take risks; his options were running out.

"You dare to give orders to the Council?!" the Councilor's humorous mood vanished as his face flushed a furious red.

"I apologize, sir, but I am serious." They stared him down, like sharks circling a sinking ship. Waiting hungrily for the first drop of blood in the water.

"Fine, how would you go about this _farce_ of yours?" A much older one asked from the centre, with a voice as cold as the ice in his blue eyes. The High Councilor.

"You cannot be serious, how do you even consider-" the man next to him turned in his chair, shocked.

"Quiet, Gras. We shall hear what he has to say."

"Hmm." Gras sat back in his creaking chair, arms crossed. The General felt an insignificant sense of triumph spark from his chest.

"Continue." The High Councilor beckoned, with thin lips.

Five minutes had past and not a word had been spoken after he had finished. He could even count the muted ticks of the clock, chipping away at the time. Silence was shared by all, but all for different reasons. The Council in disbelief, he in victory. He held the cards now. He nearly let himself laugh, how nervous had he been not ten minutes before, under their stare. But now he had them by the scruffs of their repulsive necks.

"So, have we reached an agreement?" asked General Vay Hek, with a glint across his yellow eyes.

Darkness kept him. A single, small pinprick of light shone a brilliant white down through the center of the dome, illuminating just enough for the naked eye to see. He had long learned to live with the near-darkness of his resting chambers. Not a whisper was heard from the huge, domed walls. One of the few things that brought him comfort was, indeed, the silence in his resting chamber, as it afforded him the peace to heal his wounds, both physical and mental.

How long had he trained here, under the bleak light of the White Sun? Days? Months? The wielder of the Nikana could be no ordinary swordsman, after all. The ancient blade was forged from ornate Tenno steel, its fighting prowess never tiring and the blade cleaving through flesh and bone as finely and precisely as it had done centuries ago. Its origin evaded him when he tried to chase it after it had been found with him upon his inoculation and any Tenno beyond his rank whom he tried to ask shooed him away with the flick of a gloved hand.

He no longer thought of the Nikana as a weapon; it was an extension of him, a perfectly crafted weapon of war that knew nothing but bloodshed. Many would call him a killer, an outcast, a sociopath. He admitted to all of them without hesitation, he may have gone as far as to embrace it. He knew his brothers and sisters may have detested him for his heartless glee in the field of battle, but it was his inhuman grace and finesse in combat and assassination that had kept him and his comrades alive.

A sound. Ash was up within a moment, his Nikana poised in front of him. He lowered his weapon when he recognized the alluring face of Saryn. She scanned the room with narrowed eyes, trying to pick apart any movement from in the black shroud that hugged the walls, hiding anything inside it. Her devilish eyes rested upon Ash, who had knelt back down again, only his head moving slightly downward in what appeared to be acknowledgement.

She took another step into his cold chamber, the clacking of her stilettos echoing off the walls. The beam that shone through the roof crept its way along her pearly white skin. Ash admired her beauty, which was never rare to appreciate. Flawless, wavy blond hair cascaded onto slender shoulders, which complimented her thin waist and perfectly sculpted hips. Her apple red and cream suit finished off her striking image with tall, willowy legs on pointed stilettos.

Ash hid a smile; the nature behind her allure was nothing sweet. Saryn often released aphrodisiacs and lustful pheromones into the air on the battlefield to distract and lure in oncoming enemies with a lascivious aura of pleasure before stabbing them in the throat with her Fang stiletto knives. She had often compared her deceitful tactics to those of a Venus Flytrap, one of the Old Earth's carnivorous plants. Ash had always admired her for this approach to their work; sadism was one of the few things they had in common.

The corners of her lips curled up into an impish smile.

"Hello again, Ash."

 _Not this again._

"What do you want?"

"Just to chat. We haven't had a good conversation in a while."

She spoke softly, with a kind of calm amusement, with no unneeded movements of her lips.

"We have. Just none of them were good. And most seemed to rather be one-sided, to say the least."

She giggled rather childishly, before looking back up at him. Her eyes lit up the room, outshining the bleak light of his chamber.

"I didn't think you had it in you for humor."

"Neither did I."

She giggled again. Saryn knew how to be adorable when she wanted to.

"What do you want, Saryn?"

She hesitated, lips parted, before answering with another smile.

"I just worry about you sometimes; all alone in here, no one to talk to."

 _Liar._

"Perhaps the silence of the chambers is just what I need." He remarked, fresh mists of cold breath billowing out from his helmet.

She raised a perfectly-plucked eyebrow very slightly in mild disapproval.

"Get over yourself, Ash. I know that something is bothering you; normally you would at least be in the baths or some place _hospitable_." She said with a slight shiver in her breath.

Silence, again.

"Well?"

"What makes you think that I would tell _you_ , of all people?" Ash replied snidely.

Her smile was gone, but only for an instant. She started to pad slowly towards Ash, perhaps purposely making the swing of her hips too obvious, but Ash was mesmerized nonetheless. A subtle click came from the back of the warframe's collar as her fingers swept her golden hair back behind an elegant ear. Ash began to notice a small shimmer appear round her upper body, and he could have sworn that he picked up a slight smell of…

 _Rose._

His hand went straight to the kunai on his hip, drawing it and standing up within a heartbeat. His hand moved on the next, straightening outwards and releasing the kunai before snapping his hand back for another throw. It whistled through the air, landing just within a hair-length where Saryn was about to place a graceful foot.

"You'll have to try harder than that." He smirked.

She remained motionless, before stepping back, but not too far. Just enough so the light could let him see her face.

"I honestly wonder when you'll learn to live with us, because right now it feels like you're just... passing through." She looked at him with something that resembled sympathy, but it was more of a pathetic type of pity.

She said nothing as she arrived at the entrance to the chamber. Light poured in through the partition between the doors, casting a long shadow that stretched all the way to Ash's perch. Once the doors opened, she stood, looking straight at the ground. He listened.

"Ash, I…" She stopped mid-sentence, shaking her head. She breathed another breath of cold air in, and shivered as she exhaled it out.

"You know what? Forget it."

She looked round at him with that same, horrible look.

"I'll be in the Oracle, if you decide to join us. Goodbye, Ash."

The doors shut, blocking out the precious light, and leaving him in blackness once more.


	2. Chapter 1

**_Chapter 1_**

 _"Close your eyes. Steady your breathing."_

The words of the Banshee filled his mind once again. Only her words, though, for her face was one even he shivered to think of. Her face had nothing peculiar or outlandish about it; an elegant nose, slim lips and the slightest of crinkles near the corners of her mouth, a pair of ears that pointed slightly at the top and an empathetic, almost maternal nature. But it was her _eyes_ , or what remained of them, that shook him upon the faintest, most momentary of recollections.

They held no colour of their own, apart from a morbid, rank colour of clouded grey that seemed to move and shimmer, as if there was a coiling, deathly mist that swirled beneath the surface of her expressionless, empty irises. He had been there when she lost her sight. He wished still that he hadn't.

The mission had called for the extermination of one proxy of the feared J3 Golem, this particular strain ardent on constant and indeed incredibly rapid evolution to new threats. The battle had been a long and bloody one; their Ember had been rendered useless without her firestorms and accelerants after the Golem had leeched her physically of all energy, and had nearly destroyed her body in the process.

The Rhino was forced to seek cover as his robotic shoulder had been blown to pieces by biological spines, living and hungry for flesh, burrowed beneath his armour and hardened, locking his servo joints into place and breaking it apart. Ash himself had avoided a horrible demise through his agility and elusiveness, but was running dangerously low on energy and, even with his stamina, was feeling the effects of tiredness slowing his footfalls.

It was the Banshee, assigned to lead the squad, who was next. She had eyes sharper than any blade, and a hair-splitting aim, able to shoot a bullet through the miniscule visor of a Crewman's helmet from across an icy canyon on Venus, which was only boosted by her Sonar, able to find weaknesses in even the most resilient of armors. But, with time, the Golem adapted. The bullets from her Vectis now pattered harmlessly off newly created armour plates on its shoulders. Masses of muscular tissue formed over its spindly legs in seconds. It made an immense, soaring leap across the dark, rocky chamber in which they fought, landing right on top of the Banshee with a crash, knocking her onto the floor and right in between its rotten mandibles. She tried to roll out of the way and scramble for her weapon, but the beast's tentacles batted it away and grabbed her by the arms and throat, refusing any type of struggle. Nothing could have prepared her for what came next.

Light-blue fluorescent light poured from its ugly mouth as it let out a hellish screec, its face practically touching hers. Its grip tightened around her throat, forcing the helmet to open. Its saliva, dripping down into a pool on her chest, now glowed with the same light-blue colour as the Golem made a sick _hyuk-hyuk_ sound, as if was trying to laugh. It _smiled_ at her, with too many decayed, disarranged teeth. She let out a scream of her own, perhaps to disorient it, but it didn't matter. The Golem cut her futile retaliation short as it spat a glob of saliva down on her face. She only whimpered at first, like a wolf pup without its mother's milk, but her whimper rose to an agonized howl as the saliva took its full effect. It fizzed and spat with a sickly crackle, eating into her fragile white skin and burrowing into the angry red flesh underneath. The acid leaked into her tear ducts, spreading across her eyes in a matter of moments and shredding apart her lenses before dissolving into her retinas. She saw nothing, but the pain was all but invisible.

The Trinity had managed to restore the ruptured skin cells across her face, but nothing could fix her eyesight. She was changed. But, even though her eyes had been taken from her, her spirit was left unbroken, perhaps more resilient, and even stronger than before.

Her words, monotonous and lifeless, had stayed with him since she had taken over his inoculation.

 _"This technique will allow you to see more than what you had ever seen before. Your eyes merely show you what happens. There is no deeper meaning or sense to what you see. However, with my sight gone, I may now see what will happen, not what is. Every footstep, every tiny movement. My mind's eye is now open, and I will help you open yours. Now, focus."_

Ash's footsteps across the marble floor of the main dojo set off tiny sounds that slowly rippled across the silent air of the main hall and reverberated back at him. These sounds collided with the doors, the marble pillars, the carpeted staircases; he felt all of these within a moment.

 _If I can feel all of this now,_ _the Banshee must be something extrordinary._

He tried again, this time walking briskly towards the entrance to the Oracle. He felt the still air move gently round him as he kept his pace. The sounds of his peers seeped through the miniscule spaces under the doorway and drifted through the air, caressing Ash's ears with a gentle sense of affinity and comradeship. A warm feeling spread across his chest, something he had longed for to understand. Was this what true family sounded like?

He dismissed these pleasant thoughts and opened his eyes. This was nothing like what he had "seen" with his other senses; he felt constrained and somewhat primitive upon seeing the sliding door open in front of him. With his sight absent he felt weightless, in his own little dimension, so very alone, but so very… safe.

With his sight returned, he stepped into the Oracle. The three factions known in the system - the Grineer, the Corpus and the Infestation - glowed on holographic displays, staring blindly at the display in the middle. The room was filled with commotion; navigators, servants and engineers tapped robotically at holographic keyboards, staring at endless scrolling walls of text that displayed nothing of interest, just status reports and messages from other parts of the station.

The Frost and Rhino were talking on the other side of the room; Frost most likely spoke of future plans with icy breaths while Rhino acknowledged with small, rapid nods. Saryn wound and unwound a small lock of hair with one hand and tossed and caught a Fang over and over again with the other. He made special care to avoid inciting her gaze; the smoke from their meeting had not yet risen, and he did not wish to let it dissipate. He sought peace with her, at least for the while.

He let his gaze pass over a few others before he spotted a silhouette hidden beneath above the canopy of the Orracle. The hammerhead helmet and the pale gray Loki suit were recognizable to Ash anywhere; the two of them held a fraternal bond like no other.

He fondly remembered working together with him on a contract calling for the assassination of a Corpus High Council member. Nash Kekh, that was her name. Fighting her elite had not been a difficult task; Loki outwitted them and Ash killed them before they even realized he was there. It was the assassination that had proven difficult, for she had augmented her eyes to spot movements and act upon them with lightning speed, before they even happened. The Loki were often considered tricksters, rather than murderers. This one, however, was somewhat of an exception.

Indeed, he had deployed a holographic clone behind her, and when Kekh swung her sword, he teleported away and brought the clone in his place. Kekh stumbled, brought off-balance by swinging into thin air, and was finished off by a quick stab through the neck and out of her mouth, leaving her death mask one that struck terror into the remaining crew after she was found crucified in the civilian quarters. The Loki had often boasted of that victory, but he was often regarded as a liar, and with good reason.

Ash disengaged his cloak; reappearing out of nothingness, save for a small cloud of smoke. The Loki turned his head to glance at the approaching visitor, finding a figure that exuded an aura of death and a poisonous decay. He hinted at this recognition with a smirk, before turning back to the center display.

"It is good to see you again, brother. Where have you been? Stealing from the rich? Feeding the poor?" The Loki asked with a wry smile.

"I see your sense of humor hasn't dulled yet, Fenrir."

Ears pricked up all round the room, for a mention of a Tenno's name instead of their suit was a rare occasion and usually reserved for family, and hearing Ash speak was even rarer. His voice rasped like rock against sandpaper, and his breaths always seemed shallow and hoarse.

"Anyway, weren't you supposed to be stationed on Phobos? Word has it that you killed the mighty Lech Kril." Ash tuned out for Fenrir's answer, for only a fool would believe a word that came out of his lying mouth.

Ash smirked at this thought and was about to speak before the holographic display in the middle dawned into life, where a model of the Lotus appeared. No one had yet seen the Lotus truly, only manifestations of her through the dojos and stations.

On the display she wore a purple, flowing robe that made her look somewhat frail. Small metal plates overlapped on her slim neck and fastened halfway round like a collar. Her most distinguishable feature was most definitely the helmet. It covered the top half of her face, with wires protruding out the back, giving her a constant feed of data from all parts of the ship. Ash thought to himself how she would have looked like if she hadn't donned the helmet. Maybe she could have trained to become a Nyx, or something of the sort. In any case, what he saw of her betrayed a beauty that could have, perhaps, been appreciated before she became... this.

"Tenno, one of our whistleblowers has informed us of the location of a Corpus captive holding valuable intel on the location of a Grineer Councilor. The ship is due to fly from Venus into the Sagittarius asteroid belt of Saturn, where the captive will be interrogated and executed. It is our job to make sure that this does not happen." She said in her deceivingly human voice.

"Who will take on this mission?" The Rhino boomed from across the Oracle.

He stood tall, with golden-brown plates of lightweight steel overlapping to create a living tank. His dark-brown hair was shaved short, which showed two metal studs drilled into the side of his head that secured the metal plates replacing the bone that had been shot out by a Corpus sniper. Those who donned the Rhino were not known to die easily.

"The General of the Steel Fury wing has decided that the squad members shall be: The Banshee," She began, a few heads turning towards the now leaving Banshee, the rest trained on the Lotus.

"Volt,"

Volt's thin figure stepped from behind the huge bulk of Rhino and followed Banshee out of the door.

"Saryn,"

Ash stole a glance at Saryn, who had now put her stiletto away and looked at the Lotus with that same, devilish grin.

"and Ash."

Many of his comrades turned to either of the pair and smirked, some even stole a few hushed laughs. He and Saryn had gained a false reputation for being an item, even though the idea was far-fetched and was by far the most terrible combination for a couple anyone could think of. However, unexpectedly, she had stuck to him since the first day of his assignment to the wing and had grown to be nothing but a thorn in his side.

 _"Just a thorn in my side..."_ Ash thought solemnly to himself.

He adjusted the blade by his hip and vanished from sight for a split second, before reappearing behind Saryn. He carefully stepped round her and avoided eye contact; he was in no state to even give her a moment of his attention. He rounded the next corner and entered the elevator, slamming the button labeled 'S', quietly hoping that the doors would just hiss shut and leave him in peace for a few moments.

But the universe never liked to afford him such luxuries. Ash turned his head to see the gloved hand of a Saryn warframe barring the doors from closing.

"Not this time, Ash. "

The doors shut and the lift began its descent. She leaned against the wall opposite him, sighing.

"Now, you're going to tell me what's been going on."

"This, again?" Ash looked bothered. The Saryn tutted.

"Yes. We're going to be spending a lot more time on missions ever since my promotion. I know that you might not like it, but now even Umbra is getting worried about your recent behavior. It's not like you, as hard as that may be to believe."

"It's nothing, I've told you."

She slammed her fist on the control panel, making the lift jolt rather ungracefully to a stop. Ash jumped awake, looking up to the Saryn, whose eyes kindled with irritation.

 _This is new._

"You _have_ to start trusting people, Ash. Soon you are going to find yourself without us, and no one will be there to help you. Not even me."

He answered with his silence, merely studying her face, at any little imperfections. He gazed at her with newfound interest. It was as if her face had been crafted under the careful, precise hand of a doll-maker, created out of the purest white porcelain, and every little detail etched in with the closest accuracy. She had a small dimple, almost unnoticeable, on her right cheek.

 _A slip of the maker's hands, perhaps?_

She glared at him now, seething under her skin. He glared back.

Silence, once again.

She looked to the control panel, and pressed the release.

The doors opened. He left.

The starmap still fascinated him whenever he entered it. The inside was nothing spectacular on its own, but with the holographic displays on it became something wholly different. A million little lights exploded outwards as soon as Frost placed his finger on a small panel in the center of the room.

They glittered and shimmered brilliantly before fading out to the edges. The planets of the Solar System drifted lazily out to their orbits round the golden sun in the middle, with their names and statistics listed by them. Frost walked over to a sandy, shrouded planet and enlarged the image with swift back and forth movements of his fingers.

Ash rarely saw the Clan General, and took this opportunity to see how he had changed since the last time they had fought on the field.

He was dressed in a heavy yet extravagant robe of armour that clutched and overlapped across his chest and down his side, closing off any openings . Air condensed in white clouds when he and the warframe breathed. His features showed that he was young, but he had more experience than any of the four in the room put together. He bore scars of many wars, most covered by his dazzlingly pure silver-white hair. His eyes formed slits, leaving only his icy blue irises to be seen. He was a born leader, and he most certainly looked the part.

"Brothers, sisters, I believe you understand the mission at hand here, correct?" He asked sternly. Silence answered him. Satisfied, he continued.

"The captive held on this ship is due to reach the Sagittarius asteroid belt within a week, but we must act now if we wish to evade any reinforcements coming from the stations on the belt itself. The plan is simple, and if executed correctly," He looked up momentarily at the group, "we will have our information before the day ends."

Silence replied once again.

"We will start by entering through the engine room. There the noise of the Grineer engines will smother any sound we make coming in. Next, we must take the intelligence room. Here there will be all of the ships communications equipment, both local and interplanetary. We can stop them from making distress calls and we can then initiate the second part of the plan. Ash, you will make sure no one leaves that room alive, understood?"

He nodded curtly, keeping his attention to the Clan General and trying to ignore Saryn's venomous gaze.

"Now, this is where you will come in, Banshee, Volt." He acknowledged them both with two quick glances before training his eyes on the small model of the Grineer cruiser in front of him.

"Banshee, I want you to tap into the intercom system and destroy their hearing. Make their ears bleed. Shatter their will."

Banshee nodded politely and stepped away.

"Volt, the main control panel for the ship's lighting and electricity is in a small room right next to the intelligence room. Fry their systems. Short circuit any backup generators you find down there, as they will hinder our advance."

The Volt immediately jumped from the wall and bolted inhumanly fast down towards the elevator, shoving the Banshee out the way and receiving an irritated grunt in return.

"After they've gone blind and deaf, make your way through the vents that circle the ship and get to the helm. Her there will be a vent that drops down into the room where the captive is being held. Kill any guards and bring the captive back. His room will be separated, so the noise and the power outage shouldn't affect them." He glances at the digital clock glowing under the skin of his wrist.

"I expect this to take about twenty minutes. I need information, and I must have something to report to the Warlord at the end of today. Let's get to work, Tenno."


	3. Chapter 2

The waiting was the worst part. The four Tenno were suspended in body-shaped rigs that locked at the hands and legs. Ash could hear the frantic chatter and the rushing footsteps of the crew above, who were most likely making hasty preparations for deployment.

The Tenno were not given a time for when the deployment began, they had to just wait there, bodies sagging in the electromagnetic cufflinks, with only their nervous breaths and the hum of machinery from behind them to keep them company. The sounds from upstairs now stopped, with only one of the crew members talking to everyone else. The voice stopped after a few moments, and was followed by the slow but loud whining and droning of the engines. Ash steadied his breathing, ushering an ancient mantra of his people with low words.  
 _  
"Dominus noster, venator animarum nos protegat. Educ nos una, quia cadamus quando nos separati sunt."_ He closed his eyes in prayer, ignoring the piercing cry of the engines.

The drop ship detached immediately and fell, pulled by Venus' unrelenting gravity. Ash felt the air being kicked out of his lungs by the sudden drop. Like a bird shot from the air, the ship took a steep dive into the planet's atmosphere, thick clusters of dust, sand and heated rock scraping against the hull of the ship and fierce winds flattening the Tenno against their holding capsules.

"Fly, damn you!" Ash managed to wheeze out angrily.

As if to obey his wishes, the engines flared into life, tongues of blue flame spitting and roaring, fighting desperately against the g-forces that pulled the ship under like an anchor. Ash closed his eyes and willed for the noise-cancellation systems in his warframe to switch on. The suit obeyed him, and his ears were coated with a velvety curtain of blissful ultrasound. He closed his eyes and allowed his muscles to relax.

 _"Dominus noster, venator animarum nos protegat. Educ nos una, quia..."  
_

The metal grate clattered onto the suspended platform above the engine room. Four huge, spherical generators rumbled and droned, spewing black smoke through metal pipes going through the ceiling and diverting some kind of luminescent yellow sludge through transparent tubing into the wall. Fire flared through the metal protectors, wild beasts of flame licking their tongues through the slits in-between.

"Such crude machinery," Volt could barely be heard over the cacophony, "I wonder how this pile of scrap can even fly. I'm glad we didn't bring the Vauban here, he wouldn't sleep for days."

"I don't think anyone can sleep with this noise," replied the Banshee, "let's move on. And stay quiet."

"Tenno, there are no bio-signatures in this room. I detect three in the next room, however. Ash, clear the way to the intelligence room."

Ash complied, willing the suit to release small smoke clouds that reflected any light back out in random directions, reducing any visibility of his body to small distortions and shimmers. It was the Vauban of the Silent Swords wing, one that specialized in the art of stealth and was home to many of Ash's kin, who had implanted this system into his warframe. The man truly was a genius, and Ash had yet to thank him properly.

He drew his Nikana, the blade whispering coldly as it drew power from the warframe. The edge shimmered with electrical energy and small bolts danced across its silvery surface. Ash gazed longingly at this beautiful creation, only to be interrupted by a sudden clang that came from one of the engines. He sighed and ran down the metal scaffolding, threw himself over the railing and landed flawlessly with a roll onto the ground floor.

He rounded a corner and spotted the three marines that the Lotus had mentioned earlier. Their bodies were grossly out of proportion; their machine powered legs were spindly and frail as compared to their huge shoulder pads and torsos. They walked painfully slowly and they often spoke in garbled, ugly dialects that Ash couldn't understand. Ash strained to hear anything important, any names that might be useful.

 _"Na scre bal sa sektor."_

 _"Gusch lagh, mer tamnad gornekh!"_

The three of them chuckled for a few seconds before coughing and muttering among themselves again. Ash couldn't bear to listen to any more of their rabble. He disengaged his cloak, jumped onto a wall and on top of a stack of crates before leaping right over the marines' heads. He attached his Nikana to one of the locks in his foot and tucked his arms in to quicken his descent.

The katana drove straight through the middle marine's head and out through his pelvis, letting the dead body slide down and split in two. Ash disengaged the lock on his foot and used his momentum to stab the marine to his right through the gut. The soldier grabbed the Nikana desperately to free himself, but Ash answered this with a swift thrust upside the head and through the brain. The last marine left standing raised his Grakata-pattern machine gun in a last, futile defense. Ash let a dry laugh escape his throat and threw a Kunai from his belt into the marine's throat. The gun clattered onto the ground while the Grineer marine grasped at the knife to try and stop his airways from filling with blood. He collapsed onto the floor, twitching and gurgling wet groans. He spat and coughed a slimy black mass onto the floor before exhaling one more ragged breath and letting the life leave his body. Ash looked away from this horrific display and wrenched his sword from the wall, cleaning off the blood with his gauntlet.

Ash continued on, jumping three flights of stairs effortlessly and rounding several more corners before arriving at a door with a rusted sign with "INTEL" hammered in to rusted metal in Grineer glyphs. Ash engaged his cloak once more and slowly opened the door. Several monitors lit a dim, pale light across the room, where workers sat lazily in their chairs and spoke into radios every so often. The room had a general, sluggish atmosphere, and Ash wondered if he should have even bothered to waste his time on these louts. Nevertheless, he had a mission to do.

His Nikana cleaved through the crew members in seconds, Ash might as well have had his eyes closed. The last engineer got to his feet and ran, stumbling several times out of pure fear. He tripped over a cable before he reached the door and wept. Ash was there in a second, and rolled over the crawling, shivering creature. His face was a ghastly, corpse-like white, covered in cold beads of sweat. He stank of terror, Ash could taste it coming from his desperate, shallow breaths.

"P-p-please..." He mumbled in absolute terror.

"I can't hear you." Ash growled.

"P-please d-don't-" His last words were cut off by a quick twist of a blade through his skull. The man slumped back lifelessly in Ash's hand, who withdrew the wrist blade and checked the room for any more survivors. There were none.

Ash rose. The only sounds he heard now were the low hum of computers and the slowly dripping of blood from his Nikana. He embraced this moment of perfect solitude for a second, breathed out and voiced,

"The room is clear. You can come in."

"Got it. We'll be with you in a minute, Ash." He heard Volt's voice crackle over the voice-link in reply.

***

The door slid open as the Banshee and Saryn stepped through. Small flashes of blue light could be seen through the slits of the air vent coming from the other room, where the Volt was most likely creating havoc with the ship's electronics. The Banshee immediately began to glide her fingertips along the desks until she found the microphone. She wired an audio link into her helmet, where split wires fused with the warframe's nanofibers.

"I've combined my warframe's microphones and amplifiers to the cable. I'm ready. Volt?" Her voice gave away the slightest impatience. Ash didn't blame her, the stench of blood was already starting to fill his helmet.

"Just a second over here. Things are a tiny bit complicated on my end." Volt apologized.

"What's wrong?" The Banshee asked.

"The backup generators have been short-circuited, but the electronics themselves are a bit trickier to handle. I'll tell you when I'm finished."

"Take your time, Volt." The Banshee said in reply, but Volt felt somehow that she was being

Volt gave a low hum in reply, and the voice-link ran silent again.

"Ash." Saryn's voice filled his helmet. He let out an exasperated sigh and terminated the link.

 _"Ash."_ She repeated.

He closed his eyes and replied, defeated, "What?"

"I understand that you don't want to talk to me, and I'm not going to follow you around and try to make friends, but-"

"By my understanding, that's what you've been doing this entire time, is it not?"

Saryn bit back a harsh reply, and let out a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding. Her voice softened, and Ash imagined her doing her puppy-eyes routine as she spoke.

"All I want to say is that we may not be friends, but we are a team, and I am not your enemy. They are." She said as she pointed towards the surveillance displays.

"Leave me alone, Saryn." Ash said, annoyance lining his voice.

He heard a stifled insult, bitten back out of irritation. She cut the voice-link.

"How are we doing on the power grid, Volt?" The Banshee broke the silence.

"I'm all done on this end. I wasn't able to shut it off completely, but it should be enough."

"How long?"

"Enough." He repeated.

"Good enough. Initiate phase two."

Her scream could shatter mountains.


	4. Chapter 3

Fear was a weapon. Ash realized this as the Banshee let out her shrill cry. He didn't just hear it; he felt it, shaking the walls and rattling the metalwork.

There was no blade, no weapon that could possibly match to the touch of fear. The very air shook slightly as the Banshee screamed, making the glass holographic monitors shatter onto the floor and the lights explode in a shower of sparks, cascading the room into darkness. Even with the noise cancellation of the warframe's helmet, the cry still sent an unwelcome shiver down Ash's spine.

He felt a small pang of pity for the crew ease into his conscience. A Banshee's cry was a terrible weapon, powerful enough to still the hearts of lesser beings and destroy the senses of anything unfortunate to survive.

The screaming ended as abruptly as it had begun. Ash's ears still whined a little afterward, and shook his head rapidly to try and ease the annoying sound. The air still shook slightly, disturbed.

"Do you think that did it?" The Volt asked.

"We'll see." The Banshee answered flatly, "Kill the power, Volt."

"The lights go out in three...two...one."

The light seeping from under the doorway flashed violently and a crack shot through the air.

"Volt, how exactly did you disable the power?"

"Not exactly the most orthodox way, I'm sure."

"What in the name of the Old Earth is that supposed to mean?"

"I can't exactly read Grineer, Banshee. However, overloading the system with enough energy to melt ferrite seems to do the trick."

Ash smirked at that last remark.

"Very clever, Volt. Kill the power, and also anyone standing near a power source." He said with a chuckle.

"I'm a bloody genius, aren't I? Didn't expect the thanks to come out of you though, Ash."

"Hmm." _Was that an insult?_

"Tenno, visibility among the Grineer has been reduced to almost nil. Use the main decks for your advance, you will encounter next to no resistance." The Lotus' robotic voice interrupted their conversation unexpectedly, snapping Ash out of his rare, talkative mood.

"The captive's room and the engine room have backup generators, but there is minimal security around these areas. However, due to the failure of the artificial oxygen generator, the ship will make not planetfall before the oxygen runs out."

"The oxygen! Volt, you bastard, how could you be so stupid?!" Saryn exclaimed angrily over the voice-link. "The prisoner will die! This will all have been for nothing!"

"Keep your temper, Prelate. Time is not a luxury anymore, Tenno. We move, quickly and without hesitation. Volt, take the lead."

He complied, his warframe surging with electricity as he ran. The others followed soon after, rather too eagerly, deserting Ash and leaving him with only bodies to talk to

He didn't waste time catching up. What he saw on the main decks was something out of a twisted nightmare. His built-in heat lenses made the stumbling bodies in front of him look like deformed monsters. Weeping and desperate sobbing filled his ears, sending chills across his body. He sprinted along the scaffolding and beams across the top of the pitch-black hangars, wanting to be as far away from the chaos that was taking place on the ground level. He marveled at the sight.

A company of Grineer soldiers was stationed here, but it only took a few minutes to bring them down to nothing more than deaf, blind and weeping masses.

He ran along the last beam before jumping down onto a wavy path of bronze pipes. He spotted his brother and sisters ahead of him, appearing a moment later next to them in a small cloud of smoke. They stopped at a room with chemical lights strewn across the cold metal floor. These lights dimly lit up two Marines sat propped up against the wall, whispering in hushed breaths. Upon closer inspection, Ash realized the full horror of why the soldiers had been weeping. Their helmets were painted with a terrible display of blood streaming down the front. The glass had shattered from the Banshee's scream, sending glass shards from the helmet lenses into their eyes and shredding the optical nerves inside. Last breaths rasped from their deformed throats, as if their very souls were trying to claw their way out of their mortal bodies that caused them so much pain.

Ash felt that same feeling of pity creep up inside him again. He drew his Nikana and slowly walked past his fellow Tenno who stood, frozen.

"Ash, what are you-" The Saryn began to protest as he advanced, but…

Ash had already answered for her, making two quick, clean thrusts into the skulls of the marines. Their deaths were instant. Silence hung over the four Tenno, like the very presence of death that covered the ship in its midnight shroud.

The Nikana was returned to its sheath, locking in place with a small click. Ash stole a glance at the Tenno behind him. He found nothing.

 _Typical._

Ash jumped up and pushed himself into the air passage, leaving a shaken squad behind him. He peered over the sharp vertical bend, finding nothing but blackness. He turned on his warframe's flashlight, which barely managed to penetrate the blackness. He turned up the brightness to its maximum, giving him a slight glimmer of metal at the bottom of the drop.

"It looks like a pretty steep drop to me, so we'll go down one at a time. Allow me a few seconds to move out of the way, alright?"

"Understood." The voice of the Volt had lost its usual sparky nature.

Ash sighed once again and dropped down. He extended his wrist blades into the steel plating of the tunnel to slow his descent, wincing as the metal screeched into his ears. His feet touched down delicately on the metallic bottom, like those of a cat's, making no sound. He quickly moved along the pipe to allow the rest of the group to

join him. He barely heard the Saryn and the Banshee, but the Volt came down with a rather ungraceful thud. Shaking his head, he turned round and covered his eyes with his hand to ease the piercing white light shining through. After the flash grenade suppressants in his helmet kicked in, Ash turned off his night vision and walked towards the holding chamber.

The room itself was suspended on thick cables which stretched out to the sides of the room. Four floodlights, one in each corner, shone harsh, white light on the center of the nano-fibre glass cell. Inside were two bodyguards in thick armor that coated their entire bodies. In their hands they held huge Gorgon-pattern light machineguns. Ash was particularly nervous when it came to fighting against such weapons; they were rumored to shred apart Warframe adamite scales in seconds. In between the two giants was a frail human in comparison. His Corpus helmet and uniform had been stripped and replaced with a thin bodysuit that offered no protection whatsoever.

The Banshee behind him had obviously seen this as well; a nervous breath exhaled in the voice link.

"Saryn, your poisonous attacks can eat through their armor. We will breach through the top, you will weaken them while Volt and I will try and cut them open once you're done. Ash, it is your job to grab him and get him somewhere out of the way."

The rest of the squad nodded in acknowledgement.

"Let's go." She ordered.

The Banshee spun up the three-bladed disk in her hand. It's black, sinewy limbs extended out and spun rapidly, making a small saw in the Banshee's hand. She jumped down and landed with a soft thud onto the top of the glass. She spun the Glaive faster, until the limbs became a blur of deadly blades. She cut through the grate on top of the cell, letting it clatter in front of the guards. They reacted instantly, spooling up their roaring Gorgons. The Volt jumped down after her and let loose a bolt of lightning from his fingertips. It struck the first guard with ungodly force, striking a huge, white-hot hole in his armour before leaping to the guard next to him and the unfortunate hostage in between them. The captive spasmed uncontrollably on the floor, teeth clenched and sweat dripping down his bald head. Saryn dropped in next, spewing acidic darts from her customized Tysis at the guards.

It was truly a horrific weapon indeed. The darts themselves were living, and burrowed into armor like little worms. They then pierced the skin of the enemy and injected their poison, or they could be wired to detonate. Either way was a terrible fate to die by, one just less conspicuous. She had wired the darts to inject the botulinium toxin, the most powerful neurotoxin known to the people of the Old Earth. A teaspoonful could kill over a million people, and this dart had just injected two. The guard's pained screams were cut short as his body gave way to violent spasms and his eyes began to fill with blood.

He banged his head against the steel floor, as if trying to stop the wracking pain that tore through his body. After a few moments, he stilled, as did his partner. Ash had already taken the unconscious captive and dragged him down to the door of the cell. Ash shook the captive's head with his hand before smacking him across the cheek. The captive's eyes fluttered open to see the featureless front of Ash's helmet staring him in the face. He whimpered and reached his hand for the alarm by the door. His attempt to call for help was immediately hindered by a Kunai that imbedded his hand into the wall. The captive screamed in pain and looked round to face his captive with wide, round eyes stricken with terror.

"Who ar-... Wait. I know who you are. Y-You're the Tenno, aren't you?" The captive raised his remaining hand to point at Ash's face.

"Yes." He batted the hand away. "And I know who you are. You are not important. Who you do know, however, is important."

"Who are you talking about?"

This question was met with a fist to the face.

"Don't play around with me. Tell me the name and location of the Grineer general who you found."

"I don't know anything; I've told you this already!"

Ash's fist was up in a moment, but stopped by delicate fingers that closed round his wrist with a soft grip.

"Let me handle this." Saryn said impatiently.

Strange.

"Very well." He replied blankly.

He stood up and walked over to the two bodies, where Volt was searching around for spare ammunition and the odd transmitter. Saryn took his place, sitting down with her legs spread open on the captive's lap, leaning forward. She disengaged the helmet locks, allowing air to hiss out of the helmet and her wavy blonde hair to fall loose. She shook her hair out as a pale yellow gas escape from her collar. Ash made sure to engage the gas filters on his helmet to prevent any of the new horrors Saryn had created to go anywhere near him.

"Now..." she smiled deviously, "Where were we? Ah, yes, the Grineer general. See, I'm not a bad guy like that scary man over there." She nodded with a soppy, patronizing voice at Ash, who turned his head away with gritted teeth.

"I'm going to ask nicely, and if you tell me, I won't put a knife through your skull." She said with a playful smile and a wink. Ash chuckled to himself.

You freak.

"Now," she asked warmly, like the softest silk. "Who is this General?"

"His name is Councilor Vay Hek. He is due to be at a troop inspection at Everest in two days."

"Any other things we should know about?"

"Atlas-class defense turrets are stationed there, as well as eight Eximi. Otherwise, standard Grineer deployment."

"See? That wasn't so hard, was it?" She stole a quick, angry glance at Ash again. "Now, I'm going to put you to sleep." She said softly as she snapped his neck.


	5. Chapter 4

The passenger section of the extraction vessel was silent on the journey back to the dojo. Not one word was spoken, and breaths were taken in quiet, low drags. Scenes of bleeding eyes and weeping faces flashed through their minds over and over again. Panicked screams and desperate whimpers seemed to ring off the walls, making any breaths tremble with frightened recollection.

The magnetic locks holding the Tenno in place disengaged with no prior warning, leaving Ash sprawled on the floor. He got up with an annoyed grunt and rolled his bruised shoulder.

 _"Biological signatures from external environment detected. Allegiance: Tenno. Bacterial contamination detected. Decontamination sequence initiated."_ An automated voice stated flatly on the speakers.

An alarm blared from above their heads, joined by swiveling red lights. Small nozzles slid out of the walls and began to spin rapidly. The unnaturally clean alkaline smell of disinfectant filled Ash's nostrils, making him snort repeatedly. When the decontamination process had ended, air quickly blew away the liquid off their suits and the hangar exit swung open.

 _"Welcome back, Tenno."_ The voice said with an unnerving friendliness as the four stepped into the silent tranquility of their home.

Apart from his chamber, the baths were the only other place he could find peace in the dojo. He had stripped from his warframe and given it to the Vauban for repairs and augmentations and made his way down here to clear his mind. It was appropriate, he thought, that anyone who saw what he'd just seen would need time to unburden such awful memories. He stared at his pale, white skin in a mirror. When he had begun his training, his skin had looked somewhat healthy. Now it was ghostly white, and the only thing that told him apart from a cadaver in the Trinity's morgue were the muscles that rippled underneath his skin.. Rage and anger had fuelled his ruthless re-training routine; the Lotus expected no less. A long, faded scar ran down his left side; touching it brought painful memories of his first experience with the Firstborn, the Hunter. The Stalker.

He preyed upon the Tenno, and used cruel, custom made weapons that were specifically designed to breach Warframe armor. One of these weapons was his scythe, the Hate, which had tiny microscopic barbs on its mono-filament edge that tore through the armor with ease. The real damage was done to the skin, however. The barbs pulled and ripped apart the sinews holding the muscles together, leading to irreversible and horrific internal bleeding.

One such ally of Ash's had faced the Hate's full fury. His leg had been torn off in chunks and sliced apart, and he now served in the Mechanicus with the Vauban, unable to run to the speed of his comrades. The Tenno lived in fear of the Stalker's watchful eye, and it was his predatory presence that kept the Tenno alive and together.

Ash remembered the searing agony as he ran his fingers over the scar. Casting away such unpleasant thoughts, he turned towards the small pool of faded-green water, steam wafting lazily over its surface.

 _Perfect._

He dipped his feet slowly into the inviting pool, making a warm sensation swim up through his body. Ash slowly sank in, letting the hot water wash away the dark burdens that weighed him down like hooks in his shoulders. He breathed out and allowed himself to be absorbed by this moment of perfect peace and qui-

"Ash." A female voice was speaking to him. Not from one discernible location, but from everywhere at once.

He groaned and leaned his head back, closing his eyes to try and block out the voice.

"Do not try and stop me from getting into your head, Ash. Your psychic barriers are weaker than a desert skate's." The voice said patronizingly, with what sounded like slight irritation.

"What do you want, Umbra?" Ash replied.

"Meet me in my chamber. I must speak with you."

"Why not talk like this?"

"I cannot sustain psychic communication without my psynapse link. You know this." The annoyance grew in her voice.

"No." Ash replied, in a teasing manner.

"Do not test my patience, Ash."

"Or what?"

Her reply was a slight pinch at the base of his spine that crawled slowly, very slowly, up and up to his head. His muscles locked in place, and once the psychic energy had reached his brain, the torment began. His vision turned the sick colour of rotting flesh, with wide, yellowed eyes staring at him from the walls. Inhuman shrieks seemed to emanate from the walls themselves, driving into his ears like frenzied maggots.

A deformed creature, one only from the most hellish of his forgotten nightmares, erupted from the water, knocking Ash down onto the side. Its eyes messily gouged from their sockets and skin, ruptured and gored, it swiped madly at him, broken nails coming within inches of his face only stopped only by Ash's withering strength. The water, before a faded green, darkened into a thick, black sludge. Ash kicked the creature into the pool where it thrashed about violently, barely managing to scream as water entered its windpipe.

" _Fine_!" Ash screamed as he closed his eyes. When he opened them, he was on his knees on the stone floor, arms barely holding him up off the floor. The welcome warmth of the bathhouse returned, but he still shivered. The water became steamy and pleasant once more, and the walls stopped watching him. He got up and walked back to his locker, where he got changed back into his robe.

"I'll go. Just don't ever show me the twisted shit that you have in your mind again." He said with a pained breath.

"I'm glad we understand each other." She replied, sounding pleased with herself.

Ash readjusted his belt and stepped into the Nyx's chamber. Green-blue light brightened and faded slowly on the walls, draping the room in a slow, peaceful atmosphere. A clear pool reflected burning candles, flames skipping across the surface. A thin trail of smoke wafted through the air from a glowing stick of incense which filled the air with pleasant lavender.

In the middle of the room was a seated figure, legs crossed onto opposite knees and arms resting on the legs with fingers making perfect circles. Her eyes were closed, her fair hair tied in a bun yet letting a thin strand escape and hang loose. As the door gave a serpentine hiss and shut, she let slip the slightest of smirks on the corner of her lips.

"I didn't think you would actually come." she finally said after a long period of silence.

"I didn't plan to, before you stuck those visions into my head." Ash replied with small pricks of annoyance stabbing at his voice.

"Beautiful, isn't it? Chaos at the click of my fingers."

"Yes, but it takes a special kind of cruelty to do something _that_ awful." Ash remarked.

"You talk as if you have a heart of gold. Get over yourself, Ash." she bit back with a condescending smirk.

"Point taken." He took another step onto the wet stone path. Cool water lapped at his feet, making the hairs on his legs rise.

"Anyway, Umbra, what do you need from me?"

"We need to talk." She said as she rose from her meditation.

Her feet gracefully stepped across the water, levitating slightly above the surface but never touching it, like daring birds swooping low to the lake but never meeting its embrace.

"It appears everyone needs to talk to me these days. Has the Saryn lost the courage to speak to me herself?"

"As much as I would like to scold you for your attitude towards your fellow clan members, there are more pressing matters that need to be discussed."

"I beg to differ."

"That's irrelevant. There is something that's been plaguing me for a while, and _you_ are somehow involved."

"That somehow doesn't surprise me."

She ignored him. "Do you remember when you came here? When they first cracked out you of the capsule?"

 _Cold, so very cold._

"Not much. Why?"

"I've been looking through your memories – well, what's left of them – and there seems to be a complete cutoff from your inoculation. No trace of any memory cells, just… blank space."

"You've been…?"

"Don't act surprised, Ash. Like I said, your mental barriers are not exactly hard to break."

He huffed, and leaned against a nearby moss-covered rock.

"Anyway, what intrigues you so much? I'm sure I'm not the first amnesiac you've screened."

"True, but they at least have some memory of pre-birth response, or some sort of language development. Yours is like a blank slate, completely wiped." She explained as she reached onto a shelf on the tips of her delicate toes, coming down with a crystalline bottle in hand.

A clear liquid with a slight emerald tinge sloshed about inside. A gathering sense of curiosity began to overcome his unease, willing him to take another few steps into the chamber.

"What's your point?" He began to circle round the chamber, looking round at the domed ceiling and the lights that ebbed and flowed so softly across its surface.

"I think it might have been done on purpose."

He stopped at the edge of the pool, leaving only a slight ripple where his foot had gone in a fraction. He turned to her. Her face was one of almost terrifying gravity, hard and immovable as stone.

"You truly think so?"

"Yes."

"Is there any reason for such suspicions? Besides, who do you think is responsible?" Ash replied, still looking unconvinced.

"I can't say anything yet. I think this," holding up the bottle in one hand and two small glasses in the other, "will help."

"Somehow, I don't trust you."

" _I think it would be better for both of us if you did."_ A voice sounded from all around, but her lips stayed drawn.

She sat down, cross-legged, levitating slightly off the ground. She set the two glasses down in front of her, filling them and carefully putting the crystal ball back onto the neck before it floated back up to the shelf.

" _Come, join me."_ She spoke much more softly, almost alluringly. Her fox-like smile erased the last of his doubts.

He sighed, and sat down in equal fashion across from her. He picked up one of the glasses, as did Umbra, and waited.

" _Drink it quickly, it will take effect sooner."_

"Very well. To good health?" He raised the glass.

" _Why not?"_ She smiled. She drank it down and meticulously set the glass down again, Ash with slightly less grace, for it had already taken its effect.

Stars trailed across the top of his vision, and he felt his hands lose feeling. His head sank forward, caught by gentle hands. She grasped the side of his head, and focused. He felt energies, otherworldly, indescribably eerie in their nature, running through his mind like the first waters of spring through a mountain stream. He was _sinking_ , dissolving into her fingers and running through the spaces in-between. He didn't feel particularly _human_ , either, as if he was on some other abstract plane of existence, floating between dimensions. It wasn't something he could put his finger on; he felt somethingthathe _couldn't_ feel. He was… elsewhere.

Slowly, so very slowly, did he begin to see something. Formless shapes floated around aimlessly, spreading random colors across the screen of his vision, some coagulating and creating entirely formations and patterns, extending all the way to the furthest corners of this new world he was in. He now realized he was standing, standing on solid ground. The sky was turning to some dark shade of grey, and tall, towering objects rose all around him, grinding like stone against stone and covered in overgrown, aged, graying moss. The space around him appeared to distort slightly, human-shaped, but not quite. These shadows walked around, never touching him, or each other. Ash reached out to them, but they passed through his fingers like desert sand on a light wind. Everything seemed very ordered in this world. These shadows behaved very calmly, drifting, with no particular hurry, to their next insignificant task.

Within an instant, everything changed. Vivid, high fires blazed forth, igniting the structures around him in their hellish embrace. The shadows fled immediately, scurrying away towards the welcome darkness. Another blurred explosion of light destroyed the structure next to him, yet he didn't feel a thing. Further down the ash-covered road did he see tall machines striding on three, stilt-like legs that crushed the tiny huts they stepped on, all the while spraying death from the cannons protruding from their bodies. The shadows began to soak up colour, revealing them to be people, people that were screaming, people that were running. People that were _dying_. Ash looked on, lost in the malefic scene before him.

A walker strode over a building, ripping apart the wooden frames and turning the brickwork into dust. Its leg, pointed into a fearsome spike at the end, pinned a woman into the ground and twisted, making her let loose a last, wrangled scream. She spluttered and coughed up a hunk of bloody tissue, before hitting the floor. Ash could not see her face, masked by her flaming red hair, which was fierce as the flames that burned around her. A name was breathed from her lips before she passed.

 _Orion._

The name resonated out to him, but was quickly stolen away by the wind. It seemed to ring in his mind for a moment. He wasn't sure why. He looked on, to the machines, which were already passing onto the other side of the hill. He could already hear the distant rattles of their guns.

Bodies, cut apart by the bullets, lay scattered across the dry earth in front of him, soaking it anew with the blood that flowed from flagrant wounds torn into ghost-white flesh. He turned his head to down the hill, where, out of the rising plumes of smoke, he saw a small group of soldiers running up towards him, following the machines. Behind them was a black figure, still partly obscured by the smoke. Ash squinted, but the man did not seem to be moving. In fact, everything seemed to slow down. Ash began to run, ignoring the cacophony of dying screams that played endlessly into his ears. But, no matter how fast he ran, the figure only went further away.

Ash took his next step, but could not take his next. He was frozen. The fires were gone. So were the screams. The heat cooled on his cheeks. He felt again. He felt Umbra's hands withdraw from his head, and he sat up drowsily to face her.

It seemed like any life underneath those forest-green eyes had been drained from her. She looked dead to the world, and only barely managed to keep her head straight at him as she began to slur her words.

"Ash…I need you to go. Don't tell anyone what you saw."

"What _did_ I see, exactly?"

Her look turned sour.

"Did you not hear me?" She would have sounded annoyed if her voice showed any sign of emotion.

"Yes. And I want answers." He stood up, offering his hand to Umbra, who took it with some hesitation.

"I know you do. But right now, I need to study what I saw. Hell, maybe my sister may be of some use for once." She joked, but no smile came to her face.

"I see." was all he said. He blew a floating strand of hair from his face before turning to the door on the ball of his foot, stumbling somewhat awkwardly.

"Goodbye, Ash. Vulcan requested your presence down at the Mechanicus. He's getting impatient."

"Vulcan?" He said, ignoring the last part.

"The Vauban. Now go. I need rest. Looking into your mind can take its toll on mine." She shivered slightly with those words.

"You have no idea." He whispered as the door whistled shut.

Ash stared blankly at the floor as the elevator descended. What had he seen? The visions had definitely been his, he knew not even Umbra could dream up something like that. But he remembered none of them. Unease began to crawl through him, making him shiver as he remembered. The walkers. The woman. _Him._

The figure sparked something. Something familiar. Ash knew this man. But, however much he wracked his brain for answers, they did not come. Determination overcame his unease. The fire was lit.

 _If it costs me my life, I_ will _find him._

The elevator stopped and its doors slid open. Ash swallowed and stepped into the narrow hallways of the Mechanicus. The walls muffled the droning sound of machinery that pounded into Ash's ears. Momentary blue flashes sparked from under the door at the end of the hallway. Cracks filled the air as Ash stepped in front of the door. It slid open, exposing the full reaches of the Mechanicum Primaris. The room was lit with only a few white lights that rose out of the wall. The walls themselves were black, and glowed with electrical energy every few seconds.

Wires were scattered all over small desks and tables which looked more akin to operating tables. Servo-arms jolted and twitched in no particular pattern, welding and repairing old machinery and damaged warframe armor. A hunched figure clothed with only a brown robe draped over his skinny shoulders slowly placed silvery scales onto what seemed to be a prototype warframe. The head was pointed and streamlined with what looked like a bent beak sticking out the front of it. The torso was streamlined in the same fashion, with wings rising from the shoulders and ending fully opened at the wrists.

Ash walked carefully and slowly over to the figure, which seemed almost as robotic as the servo-arm that worked opposite him. He cautiously stepped round the crooked man, who didn't even lift his head from his work. The warframe in front of him actually levitated slightly, he noticed. The fibers linking the armor together were tied down by nearly invisible threads, which seemed to be straining against some unknown force.

"A marvel, isn't it?" A gruff yet friendly voice sounded behind him.

Ash spun round in surprise to see who had managed to speak normally over the cacophony of the workshop. A figure clad in navy blue armor stood before him. Eight black spheres glowed a light-blue light from both sides of his torso. A thick metal strip sat on level with his chin with the facial part of the helmet raised to expose a hearty, gleaming grin. He had crinkles round his eyelids and on the corners of his lips and a thick faded gray moustache, with an aged blue eye that showed little life but gleamed with wisdom. His other artificial eye shone a distinct red. Rings on the short barrel of the eye spun and stopped momentarily, focusing, scanning and examining their environment. The Vauban had already begun to betray signs of age, but his knowledge of technology was unparalleled, which he was prepared to even modify his own body to expand.

"The new Zephyr warframe blueprint was added to the Clan's research archives only a few days ago. Infused with Oxium, this suit is lighter than air. Can't imagine anyone crazy enough to want to pilot such a thing."

"I can name a few." Ash replied with a rare glint of humor.

The Vauban chuckled to himself. He walked to a room with a holding area similar to the ones on the extraction dropship, Ash following behind. Ash's warframe hung on it, with his Nikana suspended by magnetic forces on a glowing desk in front of it. Small cables were connected into the warframe at the back of the head, making it pulsate with energy every now and then.

"Well, here's your new warframe, all good as new. I've added on modifications to the suit, your blade and the throwing knives. I think you'll like it." He said with a wide grin.

Ash answered with a grin of his own, perhaps slightly more uneasy than the Vauban's.

"Well, let me show you what I've done. Firstly, your Kunai. I've had them fitted with small motors on each blade. When they are drawn from their holsters, they vibrate at incredibly high frequencies. So high, in fact, that when they hit something, they start to go through it. You know, with molecular displacement and all that."

Ash merely nodded and listened.

"Next, we have your warframe. I've done some polishing on the armor, tweaked the suit's energy usage and efficiency and reinforced some vulnerable areas. But most of all, I've upgraded the AI. Normally, warframe suits use small computers that are linked into your brain, and these transmit nervous signals into the suit almost instantly. Very efficient." He paused, and pointed at the arms of the suit. These had faint lines that glimmered weakly every few seconds running down the sides.

"This, my friend, is the REAL improvement. You see these lines here? They are small uplinks to an improved AI in the warframe suit. You can choose to have this turned on or not, by the way. When an enemy fires a bullet at you, the suit will automatically calculate the trajectory of the bullet and see if you are in danger of being hit or not. If you are, your suit will raise your blade and deflect or even slice through the bullet. Very useful, no?" He asked proudly.

"I commend you for your efforts, Vauban. Please, continue." Ash replied respectfully. Rather pleased with praise from someone as introverted as Ash, Vulcan carried on.

"Now, I've added some modifications to your sword. Firstly, something minor; I've added a magnetic link between your gauntlets and the hilt of the Nikana, so you can quickly recover it if you manage to be disarmed." Vulcan's eye lit up at his next sentence. "Now, here's the star of the show. Normally, your blade is controlled by you, but the AI in your suit now responds to combat in a very different way." He grinned.

"This is what I call the Lone Sword. Your Nikana links into your brain via your neural ports that connect you to the warframe, pretty much fusing you two together nervously. The suit now does three things when you have your sword drawn. Firstly, it releases combat stimulants and adrenalin into your blood, allowing for faster strikes and movement. Secondly, your warframe AI can detect weak points in enemy armor, which the blade will pick up and guide towards when you swing. And thirdly,"

He paused to clear his hoarse throat. "is something I like to call the Life Strike. If you have suffered some sort of injury in battle, striking an enemy with your blade will trigger absorption of red and white blood cells and platelets, making your hyper-regeneration accelerators will kick in. Essentially, you will heal faster if you land strikes on enemy flesh. The blade itself has been fitted with a single-cell silver filament that can break incredibly tight bonds on a molecular level. Sounds good?"

Ash gazed in wonder this modified katana, which now seemed to shimmer with unearthly power, waiting to be released.

"The Clan thanks you, my friend. I look forward to testing your creation in the field, and I'm sure you will not be disappointed to hear of its performance."

"Please, do tell; I need know how my modifications will fare in battle if I am to make any I am to make further progress."

"You've done enough already. Thank you, Vauban. Now, please, let me be alone so I may try this new warframe on."

"Of course." Vulcan replied humbly. And with that, Ash was left alone.

He slowly traced his pale fingers down the dark grey body of his new weapon of war. They tingled and twitched eagerly, hungry for new, unlocked power. He quickly pressed a few buttons on the console, allowing the small pod to close over and zoom upward into his chamber. Ash turned round and looked at the magnificent blade suspended on the desk.

The air around it seemed to shimmer with violent energy that broiled in the hate and anger that seethed within its owner for so many years, only to be amplified with the new modifications that Vulcan had put in places. Ash released the blade from its magnetic bonds with anxious, excited fingers, balancing it a few times to get accustomed to the lighter design. He drew a long breath, and let it out. He imagined the figure behind him, the one from his visions, who eluded him just barely, running to the farthest, darkest parts of his memories, refusing to make himself known.

 _I'll find you. And, when I do…._

A head rolled onto the floor. Ash smirked. He opened his eyes to see the damage the blade had done. No longer did the blade leave cuts and gashes in metal; now the sword went through without as much as a whisper. A corner of the desk clattered onto the floor, the inside edges still yellow from the heat. Ash glanced at the desk, then the Nikana, then the desk again.

 _I'll kill you._


	6. Chapter 5

The Oracle was a lot quieter now than before the previous contract, Ash noticed. The room that used to teem with stories of past contracts and missions now fell hushed with uneasy anticipation. Eyes were more or less fixed on the centre display, waiting for mission details to be brought forward. The

The holographic face of the Lotus appeared on the display, making the few who were murmuring amongst themselves fall silent immediately.

"Tenno, we have tracked down the location of the Councilor Vay Hek. He will be, according to our intel, due to be carrying out troop inspections on Everest, Earth. He is currently hunted by several Grineer governments and officials, but his Grustrag Three and several platoons of elite Prosecutors have defended him thus far. However, many of the Prosecutors have been diverted to the Ceres shipyards and the Saturn asteroid belts to lead assaults on Corpus outposts. Only 4 of his elite remain, which gives us an incredibly rare opportunity to wipe him out. As well as his incredibly bounty as a reward, the Tenno who lands the killing blow will be strongly considered for promotion to an Exarch or higher."

Ash lifted his eyebrows in surprise. An Exarch was on par with Ash's rank, which had taken him through untold hardships to acquire.

 _Vay Hek must be quite a challenge, then. No wonder he's not been stabbed in the back by one of his generals yet._

The Lotus let the silence hang for a moment, before continuing in her indifferent, robotic voice. "The Tenno participating in this mission will be: the Oberon," The slender, young face of the Palatinus gleamed with pride as he stepped forward. He was the living embodiment of the equality of the Tenno; the knowledge of justice and injustice, morality and immorality, loyalty and treachery. He nodded his head in respect and stepped into the elevator behind him.

"the Rhino," The towering monster of Taurus let a shark grin spread across his chiseled face. The floor shook slightly under the weight of his armor as he left.

"the Ash," Ash looked up and uncrossed his arms. He pushed himself off the ledge over the canopy and looked up at the display. Readjusting his katana rather unnecessarily, he looked towards the exit and walked out into the elevator.

"and the Loki."

Ash felt his heart sink.

 _You must be joking._

He turned to see Fenrir looking at the Lotus with the same astonishment that Ash wore on his face before nodding curtly and smirking as he approached the elevator. He turned round to see the envious faces of his comrades, making his smirk turn into a grin akin to a hyena. Rather unnerved, Ash looked forward into the Oracle as the doors closed.

"Just like old times, eh?" Loki leaned over.

"Meaning?" Ash asked with fake obliviousness.

"Us two, hunting down some rich aristocrat who is obsessed with augmentations? Sounds like the same situation to me."

"Hmm. Let's see if you are as cocky this time as you were then." Ash replied, as if to challenge him.

"Let's see if you can live up to your reputation, Orion." Loki acknowledged his challenge with a voice that seemed to not comprehend what he had just said.

 _You…_

Ash turned his head this time to look Fenrir straight in the eyes.

" _How do you know that name?"_ He said barely containing the strange anger that now shouldered in his heart.

"Calm down, Ash, I just happened to hear it as I was passing by. What's the big deal?"

The corner of his mouth began to lift into a snarl.

"Fenrir, we maybe are what some call friends, but you know that I do not go by that name. Call me what you wish, but call me that once more and I will not hesitate to commit grievous harm to your frail, pathetic morsel of a body."

"Bite me. Stop getting so bothered about nothing. I was just joking, right?" He smiled, although Ash knew Fenrir had no intention of stopping. He sighed and uncurled his fist, letting blood flow back into his fingers.

 _What happened?_

"Whatever. Just keep it to yourself."

Fenrir might have been cocky, but he wasn't a fool. His smirk straightened out and he looked forward at the now open door. He stepped forward and stuck a welcome arm out into the room, turning his head at Ash.

"Well, then, shall we?" Fenrir's avid grin lit up again.

The virtual sun of the Solar System lit up the stern expression on Umbra's face. Her gaze swept over the four's faces, probing their expressions and thoughts for any signs of doubt. A cold air of gravity pressed down on the four Tenno before her, making even Fenrir suppress his annoying smirk that he constantly wore.

"Tenno." She began "I want you to forget anything you know about assassination on high-priority targets. Vay Hek is something else. He has completely refitted his body into a living machine, which has been dubbed the 'Terra' battle suit. It has incredibly fast perception, possibly inhuman reflexes and has been the end for many of our kin in the past."

"Then why are we doing it?" Fenrir blurted, receiving a cold look from Umbra.

"The Clan General and the Council of Warlords has seen remarkable success rates from the Steel Fury wing, the highest being you four. Given the fact that you have all progressed to a minimum rank of a Prelate, you have been cleared for this mission." She retorted, purposely not meeting Fenrir's mischievous eyes.

"Now, the mission plan. Seeing as his elite Eximi guardsmen have been diverted, we now have our chance. There are only eight of them now, his most trusted elite, who will defend him to the death. Do not doubt their loyalty, brothers. Getting into the compound should be easy. We have successfully infected the Atlas orbital cannons in the base, which will allow our dropship to pass through unnoticed. Seeing as a direct approach into the entrance of the compound is out of the question, we will then trigger a remote sequence that overrides the cannons, letting us lay waste to the blocked-in gorge that blocks a shortcut into the main compound."

Taurus grinned his shark grin at the last sentence; he knew nothing but destruction since birth. Destruction of skulls, bones, lives, homes; it was second nature to him.

"Once the path has been cleared, you must act quickly. You won't have time to murder everyone in the communications room," She stole a scornful glare at Ash, who swallowed his silent irritation and crossed his arms while listening further. "so he must be assassinated without any delays, before the Grineer can call in reinforcements."

"Can't we shoot them down with the Atlas cannons?" Palatinus interjected.

"As stupid as the Grineer may seem, they would probably resort to wiping the system and restoring it to the last uninfected state if they have to. This means that we'll have about a minute to secure the landing point before the systems come back under their control and shoot down our extraction."

Palatinus nodded in acknowledgement.

"Once you have breached the inner compound, dispose of his elite, then Hek. I don't care how you do it, just get the job done."

"Shouldn't we have a plan before we throw ourselves at Vay Hek's feet?" Ash insisted.

Umbra looked over to him with raised eyebrows, then back at the map again.

"The fact of the matter is, looking over our past records of fighting him, he changes his tactics every battle; we have no way of knowing how to fight him." She said with a sigh, defeated.

"Isn't there a way to disable his electronics?" Palatinus asked.

"We've tried," Umbra shrugged as she brought up a camera footage playback with a small flick of her finger. "but to no avail."

The video played, showing the Councilor in a bright yellow metal suit with two slender legs and a huge cannon mounted on a short mechanical arm. The four-barreled shotgun that paid tribute to his unending hatred for anything but himself was mounted on his other arm. The face, however, was a sight that slightly unnerved Ash, even though it should have terrified him. His head was the only part that was left slightly human, and it had long gone past anything that looked it. Lifeless, gray skin sagged onto his metallic faceplate. His lips were a putrid black, and his teeth were blackened from age.

But even his face was not spared from augmentations. His unblinking, mechanical yellow eyes glared with hatred at the Excalibur in front of him as he yelled something obscene, no doubt. The Tenno bravely readied a fleshy Synapse bio-electrical rifle at his face, and fired. Lightning shot forth as the lips of the creature withdrew. The electricity struck him full on in the face, seeming to coarse through every tiny blood vessel and through every nerve. Then, he started to laugh. Not one of comedy, enjoyment or happiness, but one that relished on the pain of others and only seemed to belong to the most sadistic and twisted of beings. The Excalibur recoiled in shock, stopping the stream of electricity at once. Small hexagons in front of his face, unnoticeable before, glowed a lively blue before fading back into the air. The Excalibur fired his Synapse again, but his last efforts were futile. Hek grabbed the warframe with one of his legs, turned him round towards the barrels of his shotgun, and pulled the trigger. Umbra stopped the footage as the gunshot sounded.

"Tenno, let me remind you that you have no obligation to do this. It would not be cowardly to leave, if you so wish."

No one moved. They all knew that they were free to leave but each of them had things to settle with Hek and an opportunity like this was not one to pass up, especially with the hefty promotion to sweeten the deal.

"Very well. Find his weakness, and destroy him. Good luck, Tenno." She finished with something that sounded like regret.

Even though the warframe insulated heat and constantly regulated the temperature, Ash still shivered sometimes. Not from nerves, or the freezing temperatures on the high peaks of Mount Everest, but from anticipation of things to come. They weren't shivers of fear; they were shivers of excitement. Air cooled in billowing white clouds in front of him as he steadied his breathing. He willed for his helmet to close up again and stood up from his hiding place from behind the crates. Four Grineer marines patrolled around the perimeter of the small clearing, murmuring in their garbled tongue.

"They haven't learned of our presence, yet. Activate the override, Lotus." The Oberon ordered.

"Affirmative. Override sequence engaged." The Lotus replied blankly.

A low hum, then a whine resonated from behind Ash. The huge triple barreled ion cannon lowered down and turned to face the rock wall. It began to drone louder now, small rectangular lights glowing from the sides. The barrels themselves started to redden on the inside. The glow inside them grew brighter until the small ball of energy in the priming chamber radiated a burning white, screaming for release. The Grineer marines below paid no attention to the noise, much to the relief of the Tenno.

"Atlas cannon primed. Fire when ready, Tenno."

Palatinus turned his head from his hiding place behind a storage container to look at his comrades, who all nodded in acknowledgment.

"We're all ready. Let's do this, brothers."

The Lotus answered with a mere tap along the voice-link. The gigantic cannon behind them belched a blindingly bright ball that shrieked, unstoppable, towards the rock wall. The heat and energy equivalent to that of a small sun exploded as it made contact, throwing up heavy blankets of snow and small shards of rock as the shockwave hit the Tenno. Ash winced at the small blow, but quickly shook it off and got out from behind the boxes to join his brothers, who were already fighting off the initial wave of Grineer.

Bullets whizzed by Ash's head as he ran. More Grineer poured out of the doors, raising their weapons as they took cover. Palatinus' Penta grenade launcher spat tiny adhesive charges at the enemy, making huge explosions that licked at his feet when he sprinted past. He observed his attackers, who relentlessly spewed bullets downfield, a few coming close but none hitting him. He drew his blade from its sheath and leveled it at the incoming shower of lead.

Within a moment his sword was here, and then it was there. It moved so fast that even he, with his advanced helmet-assisted vision, couldn't keep track of it. He was a whirling maelstrom of deadly steel, allowing nothing past. He was invincible. Ash let loose a laugh as he charged and leaped.

Adrenalin flowing and muscles pounding with newfound energy, he landed on the first marine with frightful ease, stabbing at his throat multiple times before looking up to find his next kill. A bullet hit him in the right shoulder; knocking the air out of his lungs and making him double over, panting. Blood, his blood, sprayed across the ground, like the crimson works of a mad painter. He turned round to see his assailant. A white and grey camouflaged soldier stood rigid on a small platform, his gun quivering in nervous fingers.

Ash smiled and jumped up onto the metal grating, facing the soldier eye-to-eye. His Nikana was at the marine's throat within a second. He opened his helmet, exposing his face to the cold winter air and the fresh smell of carnage.

"Bad move, my friend." Ash snarled.

He drew the blade across its throat before driving it through the marine's gut, twisting it and cleaving it upward, leaving its amputated arm on the ground and the rest of its body crawling away from Ash.

 _Pitiful._

His Nikana separated the marine's head from his neck with no difficulty, cleanly letting it roll off onto the gorge below. The blood that remained splattered on the metal tiling, however, began to crawl towards the tip of the sword. It seemed to soak into the metal, making it shimmer a misty red. The pain in his shoulder eased almost immediately, and revealed no wound when Ash touched it tentatively.

 _The Life Strike. How interesting. Your usefulness knows no bounds, Vulcan._

He turned to see the rest of his brothers quickly dispatching the masses of marines below. Fenrir was busy chopping and cleaving his way through four Grineer Lancer marines on a circular platform above Ash, stabbing and disemboweling two of them with his serrated Kamas, while kicking one onto a sharp rock below and stabbing the other through the skull with mad glee.

He looked down to the clearing, where Taurus made quick work of two Butchers and a flamethrower-wielding Napalm with his Furax gauntlets. The gauntlets were somewhat of a marvel; designed by one of the first wearers and devotees to the Vauban warframe, it used a kinetic amplifier in each of its five fingers to transmit nearly ten times the force of the punch. With the already immense strength of Taurus' muscles and the mechanical exoskeleton drilled onto his body, the marines were being hit with a force of a small meteor. At least their deaths were quick.

Palatinus, on the other hand, was more graceful with his attacks. A Scorpion fired a harpoon at him, seeking to latch on and deliver a blow with her machete. He dodged it with frightful ease and pounced forward. His Orthos pinned her to the ground through the chest, imbedding her into the rusted metal. He vaulted over a rail with some considerable height, coming down on two soldiers and landing a killing blow to the chest on another.

An Eviscerater spun up his Miter sawblade launcher in a futile attempt to hurt the Oberon, which resulted in a quick flash from within his armor. Ash smiled as he saw the molecular manipulation integrated into Palatinus' warframe work its magic on the Eviscerater. First, the armour began to slowly burn up on the edges of the armour into the wind, before only the mechanics and the few remnants of flesh were shown. The marine then exploded in a powerful burst of green light, any remaining pieces of him disintegrated and were blown away into the wind.

"There's more." He stated, motioning over to the main complex, where

"Looks clear, brothers. Let us continue." Palatinus said as he lowered his open palm.

Ash jumped down from the platform to join him and Taurus, who had by now destroyed a wall and created several imprints of bodies on a storage container. The titan rose and ran down to the pair, creating small thuds as he went. Ash stifled a laugh as the beast came to a halt, shaking the ground as he slowed his momentum.

"Taurus, how much does that damn suit weigh?" A rather patronizing voice escaped his mouth, along with a small chuckle.

"How would I know? The exoskeleton does most of the work, so it's like I'm walking on air." Taurus replied, seemingly oblivious to Ash's mockery.

"To you, it does." Ash snorted.

Before Taurus could reply, Ash's body disappeared and reappeared at the highest platform of the base, looking round in shock. Ash could see the gray and black suit of Fenrir looking back at him. Laughing

Ash curled up a fist, face burning with embarrassment as Taurus joined in heartily. He raised his fist, tensed his muscles and dissipated. He reappeared next to Fenrir, and swung.

The fist connected with what appeared to be his cheekbone, which sent him sprawling. Ash knew that this was enough, for the damage to the helmet was minimal but the force that went through to Fenrir's head was still substantial.

"You're hilarious, Fenrir." Ash growled with no sign of humor.

"You pack a mean punch. Didn't expect something like that." Fenrir replied, massaging his neck in pain.

"You're a fool."

"Enough with your childish folly, you two. We are on a mission, under the eyes of the Lotus, and you behave like infants." The Oberon barked from behind them, shoving Fenrir out of the way. The tails of his warframe floated on the wind that swept through, not daring to touch his ankles as his strode past.

Neither of them replied as they crossed the clearing.

The group resumed their journey, the shadows of the immense rock walls swallowing up their figures whole, which were tiny ants in comparison. The rocks around them were cracked and demolished in some places, but the black scorch marks of the Atlas cannon streaked across the formations everywhere. Small slithers of light slipped through the cracks at the top, which reminded him of his resting chamber. Oh, how he wished to be there now, instead of being stuck with Fenrir for the rest of this mission.

Palatinus, who had been eyeing the shadows cautiously at the head of the group, raised a clenched fist.

"I sense movement. Weapons up, Tenno." He ordered over the voice-link, hushed, but calm.

He put his Orthos staff away into a sheath on his back and drew his Penta. Taurus disengaged his gauntlets and drew a Soma-pattern machine gun, which could hose bullets down at a target at about a thousand rounds in five seconds. He never was a stickler for accuracy.

Ash put his hand over the hilt of his Nikana, surveying the darkness for any movement with his infrared sensors. Nothing.

"Oberon, what are you talking abou-"

" **Tenno.** " A voice growled from all around them." **Do not try to run. We have you surrounded.** "


	7. Chapter 6

"Lower your weapons." The voice blared again.

"Stand your ground, brothers." Fenrir whispered with an inexplicable calmness over the voice-link.

Small patches of light illuminated the green barrels of three Gorgons pointed at the four of them. Ash looked round to see the black silhouette of a rocket launcher-wielding Bombard blocking the entrance. Lancers appeared from all sides, Grakata barrels pointed straight at them.

"What do you mean, stand your ground? We're surrounded, and even the Rhino can't withstand all of this firepower." Palatinus replied, more irritated than confused.

"He's right. Even if I could activate my Iron Skin armor, it would still be destroyed under this much damage. I used all of my suit's auxiliary energy in the battle, anyway, so I only my shields are still up." Taurus added.

"It's the same with me. This Nova technology isn't the most energy efficient, so I've only got enough to renew your warframe's regeneration systems, but that's it." Palatinus finished.

"Do not worry, my friends. You should know me enough to know that I always have a plan."

Ash could just imagine that hyena-like smile on Fenrir's smug face. "Now, gents, please stand aside."

"Go ahead. We won't be collecting what's left of you afterwards." Ash muttered.

Fenrir just laughed and took a step forward. The marines instantly reacted, one of them producing an audible _chk-chk_ from his shotgun.

He opened his helmet and raised his hands, palms open.

"OK." He announced. "You found us. You can take us back to whatever hell hole you came from and we'll be locked up forever and ever. Here, handcuff me." He stuck his hands out and turned his head away.

The marine in front of him looked from side to side at his fellow soldiers, who simply shrugged. The speaker had stayed silent for a while, but now suddenly growled a low "Don't take a single step. Now, Tenno, this is your last chance. Drop your weapons and you will not be harmed."

Fenrir still advanced as the voice said this. He stopped in front of a huge barrel of a Gorgon pointed straight at his face, which somehow betrayed no sign of fear. The slow whirring sound of the gun spooling began to rumble from the chamber of the gun, the clicking of bullets being loaded echoing off the walls. Fenrir stood his ground, only raising his eyebrow in response.

"Fenrir, don't try to be brave. Get back here." Ash ordered.

"Don't worry, Ash. I have this under control. He wouldn't shoot me, right?" Fenrir answered with no concern in his voice whatsoever.

As soon as he finished his sentence, a gunshot cracked through the air. Ash winced as a bullet pattered onto the ground next to his foot and looked up. To his surprise, the Loki was somehow behind the marine, a mad grin stretched across his pale face. Ash swore he saw a glint in the his eyes, but he had no time to think before a sickly orange-yellow light grew in Fenrir's palm. He then spun round briefly and extended his palm out in a wide arc as the light grew blindingly white for a few moments. The light faded and fizzed out as Fenrir stood up, leaving him surrounded by gun barrels.

"Oh, dear. Doesn't look like that worked." He sighed with a voice that sounded more like an apology.

A laugh sounded from one of the marines' radios, before the sound of a gloved finger pulling a trigger was heard. Then another. More clicking started to fill the air as soldier fiddled and racked their guns in confusion. Then Ash realized what the Loki had done. They were all jammed.

"Hmm. Looks like it did." Fenrir almost giggled as he drew his Kamas. Ash picked up on this and grabbed his sword from its sheath, crouching and ready to spring. Taurus spooled up his Soma and roared with laughter as the left side of the marines dropped like flies in front of him. Palatinus drew his Vasto revolver and aimed a perfect shot at the gunner in the middle. When he fired, small fins unfurled from the bullet, making it scream towards its target and savagely rip apart flesh and armor. He fired off the other two rounds and pocketed the revolver as the marines' limp bodies flopped onto the ground.

A grenade went off somewhere, sending searing mot bearings slicing into his armour. Blood spurted profusely from his left leg, making him stagger, but with a cleave across the torso and a killing blow striking into its metallic heart, the blood ran like a river along his Nikana, feeding him with raw, untapped power. They fell like toy soldiers, lying in their cold lifeblood.

The remaining marines had drawn small stun sticks, but they were poorly trained in close-quarters combat and swung clumsily and slowly at Fenrir. He merely laughed and sunk his two scythes into the heads of the first two soldiers and kicked another in the gut, making it double over. He drove both Kamas into the marine's head at once, twisted and drew them out, leaving a blood-spattered helmet attached to a spinal cord dangling and dripping gore on the blades.

After tossing away the head, his expression softened to a pleasant smile when he turned round to see the bloodbath he had created. Bodies were piled on each other, deformed and showing huge lacerations across the face and torso. He shivered slightly at the fresh smell of spilt blood, but snapped out of his trance and beckoned the others to follow.

Rather disturbed, they continued through the mountain, all the while trying not to step in the piles of bodies that littered the chasm.

Even the most heartless felt something pleasant sometimes. Whether it was a tiny spark of happiness, or an overwhelming feeling of elation, there was something. Ash came to this realization when he ran out of the collapsed gorge to a ledge overlooking the compound about half a kilometer below. The view was breathtaking when he opened up his helmet

The Himalayas stretched out to the horizon, the peaks of the mountains poking out from under fluffy tufts of white clouds and scraping the still, blue sky. The wind had subsided for now, leaving only a breeze that caressed his hair with gentle fingers. Small snowflakes whipped round and danced in the air, skipping along to the enchanting tune of the breeze whistling round the snow-brushed mountains. The sun kissed his cheeks and filled his worn body with warm, untainted calm.

He smiled at the feeling, and breathed out a slow, calm breath. He looked out across the endless blue sky and immersed himself in his thoughts as the rest caught up to him. The beauty of the Old Earth still amazed him whenever he came, but only these small sanctuaries remained. The rest had been destroyed or corrupted by the Grineer.

 _The Grineer._

Brief happiness dissipated to burning anger.

"They'll pay. If it kills me, they'll pay." He muttered a promise to himself from the corner of his mouth.

"Ash, stop daydreaming. We must press on. The main compound is down there." He pointed with his finger at a scattered array of grey buildings.

Taurus thundered to a halt next to them, with Fenrir crawling up a rock on a sharp incline, much like an eagle's perch. The drop was steep; enough to make Ash jump back slightly in surprise. Fenrir barely suppressed a laugh.

"And here he comes, the man of the evening." Fenrir declared with an upward nod of his head.

Ash peered back over the edge to see a small yellow speck slowly moving out of a hangar gate. His helmet zoom magnified the image, showing Hek's Terra battlesuit thundering across the pavilion to several ranks of soldiers, who stood tall with their abnormally large torsos puffed out. He turned to speak with his generals, all the while waving his hand over the masses of soldiers.

"Excellent. A strike from above will definitely allow us the element of surprise." Taurus remarked.

"True, but how will we get down there?" Ash asked, somewhat dreading the answer.

"The Pegasus Landing System." The Lotus intruded on their conversation, appearing on their displays.

"Care to explain?"

"It was implanted into each of your warframes before this mission, were you not told?" She inquired.

"Were we supposed to?" Ash retorted.

"Unimportant. When a rapidly decreasing altitude and increasing speeds are detected, your warframe will measure the time and distance before you hit the ground and ready the Pegasus. From about one hundred meters, it will automatically deploy small thrusters on your arms and back, slowing your descent. However, this is meant as more of an emergency precaution, Tenno, so please brace before you land."

Ash swallowed in an effort to add moisture to his dry throat, but fear gripped at it tightly with unrelenting strength. He scanned the mountaintops for any other alternative, but he found none. With a sigh, he turned to the others, who shrugged.

"Alright, we go down as a group, understood?" Palatinus broke the tense silence.

"No turning back, then." Fenrir answered with that same, strange calmness."

"I guess there are no further questions?" Palatinus turned to the rest of them. No one answered.

"I'll take that as a yes. Let's go." Palatinus said with a strange quietness as he stepped up to the edge of the cliff. He raised his palms outward, and fell forward.

Ash was the last to go. He almost felt regret at leaving a view like this, but he looked back down towards his falling comrades, remembering his mission. He spread out his arms, palms towards the sky, almost praying. He let the sunlight kiss his pale skin for a few more blissful moments before he leaned forward and fell.

He forgot the mission. He forgot himself. He was without weight or entity. The wind rushing past him raked relentlessly against his entire body with cold arms, pushing the air out of his lungs and making a slight feeling of nausea rise from his stomach. His body was a pure entity of adrenalin, arms spread out as if to fly. His thoughts were clear of the oppressive blackness that had weighed him down so long; the chains had been broken from his body. His mind was a clean, white slate, uninterrupted by anything. Apart from, maybe, the repeating high-pitched beeping that seemed to…

"WARNING: LANDING IMMINENT."

 _I'm ready._

He felt himself instantly kick upward with a great heave from the system's hissing thrusters. He floated, weightless. He drew his sword once more and came crashing down onto a Grineer Scorpion, slicing her in two. Two grey chunks of meet slid to the ground while the sword eagerly drank the ruby reward that followed. Two more marines broke their cover and sprinted, hurling plasma grenades and garbled insults at him as they ran. They fell like the rest, razor-edged Kunai drilling through their helmets and out the other side with showers of brain tissue and shredded metal.

 _Incredible._

Something smashed into his spine and sent Ash tumbling through a window and into what appeared to be a control hub; he was moving too fast to see. The back of his head caved in a glass monitor as he skidded across the metal grating. Glass rained down onto his head and cracked underfoot as he stood up. A Prosecutor smashed through the wall, throwing up dust and shaking Ash off balance. This one strode on tall mechanical legs, and carried an Amphis in both hands; a truly savage weapon. Any part that was not welded or singed together looked diseased and infected, with loose flaking of skin hanging from its face and a vile chunk of decomposed flesh dangling from a freshly opened wound on its cheek.

It spat something at him with slurred, mutilated words. Ash braced as it threw itself at him, and rolling just out of the way as it smashed into the wall. It turned and swung the Amphis in a wide arc, breaking several monitors and cabinets, and nearly cleaving Ash's head clean off his body. He deftly dodged several more swings, before parrying the next and somersaulting over the staff itself, ending up face to repulsive face with the Prosecutor. It snarled, lips curling back and revealing a set of unnaturally shiny iron teeth. Ash returned the expression and drove his sword deep into its armour, slicing through its armour like mere fabric. The Prosecutor didn't take its eyes off him, little black beads that smoldered with pure hatred. His mouth trembled, but Ash felt his strength already slipping from him. A last rotten whisper left it as the servo limbs gave and the body fell to the ground, still. Ash took a glance at it; its quiet afforded him the peace of the moment.

He climbed back through the broken window, cautiously avoiding the shards of glass lining the pane. He found satisfaction upon seeing that his brothers were already making short work of the marines surrounding them, cutting, breaking and evaporating through them with unmatched expertise.

 _This is too easy._

He sighed as he went to join his brothers once again. Shuriken shrieked from his fingertips into the throats of three marines, downing them instantly. Another two fell to a quick slash to the legs, and yet another to several rapid stabs to the chest. The Nikana sailed through them like a fierce wind through leaves, sweeping them aside with sharp, precise cuts and slashes. The incandescent flame burned inside him, but it wasn't quite yet lit, he felt.

The others were whittling the platoons down to their last numbers, and the Prosecutors lay among them, burned, hacked apart or missing a ribcage. Fenrir yanked his Kama from the face of a dead clone and spat on the body, looking for a next target, but finding nothing. Taurus rammed another clip home, feeding the beast in his hands, but there was no prey to feed it. Palatinus took the moment's peace to wipe clean the Orthos of tainted blood messily splattered across its pure white blade. He brought it back down into the neck of a marine beside him, silencing it forever.

Hek's yellow battlesuit soared from the overhang above, swooping down upon them like a hawk to its prey. Indeed, Ash felt like a mouse in comparison, scampering away behind the slabs of stone jutting out of the onyx rock and the blood-stained ground. Snow was swept up by the landing thrusters, swirling around them as if they were models in a miniature snowglobe. Small cracks appeared in the ground where he treaded, and the air seemed to shimmer around him as he walked, as if the very power he embodied bled through into reality.

From his shoulders rose two platforms, each bristling with their individual payload, ready to rain fire at a mere thought. Hek brought round his shotgun, leaving Ash staring right into four hollow barrels, each one as black as Hek's teeth.

"Now, how about we even the odds a little?" He enquired, his shark grin revealing itself across his face.

They all moved at once. Ash vanished and darted out of the way, only just being clipped by a stray sliver of shrapnel. Palatinus threw himself up to a ledge nearby, and took up aim with his Penta. As the grenades flew, spinning before exploding into a wild display of blue plasma, Taurus thundered out from behind cover, his Furax charged and braced. Fenrir sprinted round the outside, becoming one with the shadows of the volcanic rock that peered over the cave's mouth.

Ash studied Hek's movements from behind the wispy veil of his smoke screen, analyzing how he thought, how he worked. One of his most valued teachings was, indeed, that a good strategy would win the battle before it had begun. Here, less so, but it was no matter. Hek moved clumsily, swinging wildly like an enraged den mother, but hitting nothing. His shots, as a result of his terrible fury, went wide, and even the Rhino found no trouble in dodging the huge caliber shells that pattered uselessly against the snow and rocks.

Amidst all this chaos, Ash found an underlying pattern. With every fleeting shot, every missed swing, there was a sequence. One shot here, one foot there; Ash could read him like a book. A consideration passed him, followed by a smirk.

 _How exactly_ are _you a General, Vay Hek?_

It was this thought that brought a tinge of doubt with it. He frowned. His eyes narrowed to slits, and his sword fell into his uneasy hands. He waited in cold anticipation, just for the right moment.

There, when he swung once more at the Loki, who laughed and vanished once more. There was a small joint, one that clicked irregularly with the rest of his body. His sword was out, and his fingers tensed around the blade. His legs carried him with unrivalled speed across the clearing, where, amongst the raging battle around him, there was a brief moment of stillness, a clear path to his target.

He leapt in a second. A swift motion upwards and a great cleave down in another. Ash's eyes widened in shock when he did not feel his feet touch the ground. Electricity coursed through his veins, locking him in his warframe, unable to move. Hek slowly turned his head, and gave a small chuckle. A huge swipe from his robotic fist, and Ash was flying, soaring into the mouth of the cave before the blackness of the shadows took him in.

Ash always hated the feeling of unconsciousness. He knew that his body was asleep, but a side effect of Umbra's mental therapy was the curse of having a mind that was always awake, that never slept. When he had gotten to sleep, however rare, it was a warm feeling. Lying in his own cocoon, he was safe. Being knocked out was worse. He was cold, and imprisoned within the dark confines of his own mind.

What was he doing here, anyway? He didn't… remember. They were on Earth. They… that's right. His kin fought alongside him. They were on Everest. Falling. He remembered freedom, soaring through the air, thoughts clear of the blackness. Then… nothing. He was here. Or…

A tremor sent a wave of pain through his head, but he couldn't feel the origin. Slowly, the cracks of gunfire began to intrude upon his hazy vision, which only showed blurred, gray shapes. He was waking up. He felt blood rush through his ears and a new pain start to pound at the back of his head. His fingers twitched momentarily, closing on a large metal pole that seemed to protrude from somewhere. As colors began to trickle back into his vision, he made out the shapes of his comrades firing upon some yellow machine in the middle of the clearing and a strange, thick dark red liquid that... blood. It started to become more noticeable when he blinked. It was on his hands, across his torso and around the floor around him. But where...?

The sword. He looked up to see what looked like a javelin sticking out of his abdomen. The blade had gone straight through, leaving only the handle to protrude out of his body and pin him to the ground. He tugged with trembling, numb fingers to try and pull it out, but it was no use. He was helpless.

He looked out to the clearing to see Palatinus throwing down his Penta and drawing his revolver in a futile effort to harm the huge machine. Hek laughed and swung his shotgun from one of his four arms and aimed it down towards Palatinus, who desperately tried to fix a jam by breaking and cocking the gun several times over, with no success. The shotgun fired, and the white-hot pellets struck the Oberon armor straight in the torso, which only barely managed to deflect them with now-depleted shields.

Taurus ran past him, his Soma slung across his shoulder, engaging his gauntlets and powering up his exoskeleton. His armor began to glow slightly along the trims, and his augmented legs started to slowly thud into a sprint. The gauntlets whined with energy waiting to be released while he added with a deafening roar. Charging at full speed, he leaped off a ledge with all his strength, bracing his fists for what looked to be a killing blow.

He was the first to fall. It had come as somewhat of a shock to Ash, he'd expected the Rhino, of all of them, to be the survivor.

At least Hek had afforded Taurus the mercy of a quick death; the cannon on his right arm had vaporized the Rhino completely. No ashes to take back home, assuming they even survived. Nothing to remember him by, apart from the memory of a zeal that matched no other.

When Taurus had been killed, the Oberon stared, rooted to the spot, at the space where he had been not a second ago, only to see the tiny fragments of the suit's Orokin reactor clattering on the ground. He then stared at the mechanical abomination in horror, who was already priming the cannon for another deadly beam. Palatinus raised his palm, trembling with rage, right towards Hek's mask. The same blue light started to glow from his fist, quickly becoming a sphere with the brightness of a small sun. Ash squinted to see him raise his hand above his head, making a small shimmer dance over Hek's frame. Palatinus then brought his palm down, slamming it into the ground and creating a wave of energy that flew across the snow towards Hek.

It connected with brutal force, making his hexagonal shield flicker and die. The Oberon took his chance and fired his revolver, sending a screaming bullet straight at the machine-man's face. It connected with a spray of black blood that stained the pure white ground, making Hek howl in agony. He stared at Palatinus with those vile, yellow, unblinking eyes and a small snarl forming on his lips.

Hek leaped into the air and slammed down in front of Palatinus with a sudden, tremendous, earth-shattering crash. Palatinus flew several feet backward and landed flat on his stomach with a pained groan. Ash grimaced as Hek brought his enormous foot down on Palatinus' back and twisted, making the suit pulsate with barely maintaining shields. He twisted and turned with desperate yet futile effort as Hek drew his shotgun and pressed it against Palatinus' head. He stopped squirming and looked round at the huge figure that seemed to block out the sun. Through a final, ragged breath, he managed to make out the words,

"Lotus, forgive u-. " His final words, almost a prayer, were cut off by the crack of a shotgun through the dead, silent air.

He was the second.

Ash had rarely felt grief or sorrow, for the black fog of death shrouded him for every waking hour of his life, whether it be physical or psychological; it was just a matter of getting used to it. But now, for a reason he could only think if as shock, the air was punched out of his lungs and fresh waves of pain flooded his body, emanating from the gaping wound in his stomach.

Ash opened his eyes again to see Hek raising his head and stepping off the gored head of Palatinus, as if he was trying to feel for movement in the air. His artificial eyes flitted back and forth around the cavern, his fingers twitching and feeling some unknown force.

With a sudden flash, the grey and black warframe of Fenrir appeared on Hek's left shoulder, head cocked to one side with a slight down turned curl on both sides of his mouth.

"You shouldn't have done that." Loki said with what sounded like a surprisingly light tinge of anger. He drew his Kamas and jumped on to Hek's back, the blades rushing towards his neck. Hek threw two of his arms up and blocked the attack, sending Fenrir reeling. Hek spun round and swiped a mechanical fist towards Fenrir, but he was already on the other shoulder. Whenever Hek tried to get a grip on him, he had appeared somewhere else before Hek even had time to swing. All the while, Fenrir's slight frown turned into a wide grin, eventually cocking his head back in laughter.

Hek roared in rage and fired his cannon at Fenrir, who was stood smugly in front of him. Fenrir looked up just in time and quickly teleported away onto a nearby ledge. Hek looked up, but his rage had disappeared as quickly as it had come and been replaced with a sudden look of... cunning. He kept his weapons trained on the Loki, making a feeling of dread sink through Ash. Fenrir raised his Kamas and disappeared, only to reappear flailing in Hek's outstretched arm.

"Do not toy with me, fool. I am smarter than you think." Hek growled with a voice that rasped against Ash's ears like sandpaper.

"Of course, why should I expect anything better from one of the Tenno?" His voice lightened, but lost none of its murderous edge.  
"Where is your precious Lotus now? Well?" He looked round, pretending to be genuinely searching for her for some kind if comic effect.

"Nevertheless, Grineer foreign policy states that I must deal with incompetence by force." He cackled as he said this, gripping tighter around Fenrir's neck. A long, silver blade extended out of a limb further down his body, slithering out like a black, deadly serpent. He aimed this blade at Fenrir's stomach and eased the blade slowly through the armour. The blade had now extended fully, revealing nasty gutting hooks on the top of the blade and small serrations on the bottom.

Hek thruster it forward, making Fenrir cry out in sheer agony and showers of blood pour forth. He raked the blade though Fenrir again and again, each time causing hot blood to splutter out of the Loki's mouth and spray onto the snow,

After what seemed like a horrible eternity, Fenrir, his face white and paler than Ash had ever seen it, hacked up one final chunk of organ before he turned to look at Ash. His eyes had lost their usual mischievous glint, and the smirk that he seemed to constantly wear had now turned to a sullen frown. He didn't seem to be in pain, Ash noticed; his face showed no sign of discomfort. Instead, it was replaced by something that looked like... sadness. Not something that was easy to see, but the more observant eye could see that Fenrir was somewhat disappointed. As the blade was withdrawn from his abdomen,  
Ash swore that he heard the Loki say the words, "I...am.." Ash strained to hear the last word, a meek whisper over the voice-link.  
"Free."

He was the third. Ash sank back onto his small corner of the overhang, not quite accepting what his eyes had just shown him. First Taurus, then Palatinus, and now Fenrir. The last had shocked him he most, for he knew Fenrir well enough to know that he would never die this easily.

But here, to think that he had just seen one of few friends slaughtered without a thought... he felt empty. He almost laughed. He was grieving.

For Fenrir. Part of him pulled towards the hopeless thought that Fenrir had planted a decoy, that he had turned invisible and teleported away at the last moment. But Ash knew such impossible thoughts would only bring more hurt, so he swatted them away and looked out to the clearing, where Hek had by now withdrawn his blade and turned round, making his way into the overhang.

The ground shuddered with each gargantuan step Hek took, sending pain shooting through Ash's every nerve and synapse and out to his fingertips. When Hek stooped under the overhang, only his piercing yellow eyes could be seen through the darkness and only his raspy, corrupted breath could be heard over the whistling wind outside.

Ash exhaled sharply when Hek came to stop with a loud thud and a final, painful shock through his body. The Councilor stared through Ash as he moved his deformed face closer, stopping at only mere inches. It was only at this distance that Ash could fully drink in the true horror of what this sub-human had done to himself. Warts and boils covered his neck, his skin shone with vile grease and his breath stank of gunpowder, metal and rot. Everything about this… _thing_ was repulsive and bled an aura of plague and corruption.

"I have slaughtered countless of your kind, you pests are no different. But I, being the kind old man I am, ", he said with a grin that showed nothing kind, "I will let you live. You didn't even put up a fight. You aren't worth killing. Run back to your precious little flower and tell everyone that Uncle Hek is going to pay them a visit." He laughed at his final remark, twisting the Nikana, slicing Ash's flesh to make new wounds and reopening old ones. The warframe sizzled with electricity around the blade, desperately trying to repair the skin and stem the bleeding, but to no avail. The corners of his vision went red with blood and all the colors of his world washed out to white and grey. His head spun and he tried to lift his hands, but they seemed to have completely lost any connection with him. He was powerless.

Hek stood back up and began to thunder towards the exit, but not before turning his head and laughing maniacally for one last time before the world went white.


	8. Chapter 7

" _I won't let him die."_

" _Unimportant. Heartbeat has dropped below fifty beats per minute. Large lacerations on abdomen. Punctured left lung. Fourth spinal lumbar damaged beyond repair. Severe blood sepsis. Internal bleeding and haemorrhaging. Irr-"_

" _Stop. I know what has happened, but we cannot give up on him that easily."_

" _Query. We have been operating on Subject 23-b for over four hours. How has this been "easy", Eir?"_

" _Never mind that. We have to make sure that doesn't come out of the Medicanum in a bodybag, understood?"_

" _Disagreement. I do not see why we cannot let him die. His mental state is beyond repair, and so is his body. Do not assume that I do not care about his injuries. He is beyond saving. It will be the most… merciful option."_

" _Don't do this, Thanatos. There must be something we can do."_

" _Declined. I shall prepare the void burial capsule."_

"Don't let this bastard take me, Trinity." Ash rasped, grabbing her wrist with cold hands. The Nekros warframe by his right, with a single piercing amber eye shining from the pure blackness of his hood, lifted a finger and placed it lightly on Ash's forehead, sending him cascading back into the black claws of unconsciousness.

 _"Accepted. We will try. Resume operation. Opening laceration wound at fourth spinal lumbar. Eir, expose bone fractures."_

"There we go. Hold on, this part is quite delicate."

"Affirmative. Eir, use hyper regeneration accelerator systems to repair this muscle tissue and bone structure."

"Okay, I've got the muscle tissue to repair, but something is stopping the bone from regrowing."

"STOP."

"What is it?"

"Anomaly detected. Metallic spherical object detected above third lumbar. Warframe sensors incapable of detecting this, jamming signals in operation."

"Should I extract it?"

"Negative. Anomaly identified. Grineer tracker identified. Eir, do not remove that object."

"What?! A tracker?!"

"Affirmative. Further inspection indicates that this tracker has been implanted into Ash's bone structure and has been wired with C2 explosive."

"So, if we remove it..."

"Affirmative. Ash will die. This tracker will most likely lead Grineer ships to our location. Either we remove it, or we remove him."

"And by removing him, you mean th-"

"Affirmative. Cast him to the Void. Unfortunately, he cannot be euthanized, as this will also cause the tracker to explode."

"Oh no..."

A pause. _  
_

 _"I'm so sorry, Ash. It's for the best. Please understand."_

"Query. Why do you apologize? He is asleep, he cannot hear you."

"Yes, he can. And I know that he will never forgive us."

"Acceptable."

"What do you mean?"

"Disregard."


	9. Chapter 8

He was alone. Even though his capsule had no lights to illuminate the blackness, the feeling was apparent when it crept up his back and across his shoulders, making his hairs stand on end and his throat tighten in invisible hands. This added to the urge to choke back curses at Hek, who had killed his comrades; the Nekros, for not looking for alternatives and being so negligent and ignorant towards the Trinity, who had tried her best to save him; to the Lotus, who has sent them on the mission which was doomed to fail from the start. Rage scalded and burned his skin, making his hand clench into a fist. He slammed it into the wall of the capsule, which sent a shock back into his body in response, making his now healed wound throb painfully.  
His breathing stilled and his fist unclenched, aching slightly from his small outburst. He exhaled and opened his eyes.

The only light he had were faint rays from the distant curtain of stars that twinkled and glimmered over the eternal blanket of nothingness that embraced them with gentle arms. He felt a strange calm invade his spirit when he looked out towards the heavens; it was a sudden stillness that toned down the crescendo of noises that played across his mind constantly to one, single note.

He hadn't felt a peace like this for as long as he could remember, no matter how much he scoured over his few, shattered memories. It almost seemed fitting, he thought, that he should die of something like lack of oxygen instead of a bloody fight of fists, nails and teeth in the heat of battle. He had searched for a peace like this all of his life, yet he found it right before he was going to die.

 _"_ _La vie est drôle._ _"_ He repeated a phrase the Saryn had said once on a mission, after she had poisoned a Corpus crewman with hallucinogenics and watched him eagerly as he turned on his comrades.

This "fond" memory made Ash chuckle; he, of all people, would die a peaceful death thinking about the woman who he had convinced himself that he hated.  
Maybe he had been too harsh on her. She had, after all, saved his life on more than one occasion, as he had saved hers in turn. As much as he hated to admit it, they did form an excellent team through mutual love of bloodshed, however much they bickered and spat at each other when they returned. It was a harsh and uncomfortable truth, but one, Ash realized, he had to accept. And, with that, he closed his eyes and waited for death to sink its scythe into him and, at last, take him to the hell in which he belonged.

"My, my, this certainly is interesting." said a voice that sounded somewhat normal, but was lined with a sinister edge that was nearly indiscernible.

Ash opened his eyes after what seemed like a lifetime of breathing in tranquil silence and waiting for the oxygen to run out. Around the windows of the capsule frost had crept its way across the glass, reducing the lights of the stars to dim shimmers. He shivered, this time out of cold, for his warframe was just repaired and functional, and so barely managed to keep up essential life support.

He remembered that he had heard a voice from somewhere. He looked to his left to see blackness; his right only showed a few twinkling lights. Ash looked up and nearly yelled from surprise.

There, blocking out any light, was crouched a black figure, rooted to the spot with his head cocked to one side. His suit seemed almost jet black in the dwindling light of the stars, but the blood-red trim of its helmet glowed dimly and illuminated just enough to see that the ominous figure was wearing what looked to be modified warframe armour. In one hand it held what looked like a Spectra-pattern laser cutter; the other held a double-bladed scythe with one end crooked at a small angle. The weapon plucked a small string of memory in his mind; he couldn't remember where he had seen it, but the weapon held a distinct familiarity in his shattered memories.

The figure spoke again, somehow managing to break into Ash's voice-communications.

"Why are you here? You seem awfully far from your little dojo, Tenno." A row of perfect white teeth appeared on the figure's face turned crimson under the helmet's light, turning an unnerving smile into something out of a nightmare.

"W-Who are y-you? H-how do you k-know who I am?" Ash managed to make out the ragged whisper over his uncontrollable shivering and lack of oxygen.

"I know many things. And one of them is that all Tenno wear warframes, even me. Well, I'm not exactly Tenno; I abandoned your futile cause centuries ago, but you get the idea."

"Y-you haven't answered my question."

"Neither have you."

Ash exhaled sharply in reply, before shivering again and saying "M-my name is Ash. I was i-implanted with a Grineer tracker when I was mortally wounded, so they c-c-casted me out here in a bid to save everyone else on the s-station."

"You have been betrayed. I can at least relate to that. Anyway, I don't think that you'll be joining them soon, no?"

"The t-tracker will kill me if it gets r-r-removed. I can't g-go back."

"Understood. Now, firstly, let's turn the oxygen back on, shall we?" The figure proposed as it slammed the palm of its hand on the outside of the capsule, making the lights turn back on and artificial air hiss through a vent on the floor. Ash took a deep breath, allowing himself to fully awaken and let oxygen back through to his fingertips and feet. Warmth flooded back into the capsule, caressing Ash's body with gentle fingertips and stopping his shivering.

"Now, Ash, I have a proposal for you. You may board my ship and accept my offer, or die in the cold vacuum of space. What do you prefer?"

"What offer are you talking about?"

"I'll take that as a yes."

As soon as the syllables passed its lips, the figure brought up its scythe and sliced downward through the metal. It carved through the glass capsule, letting the freezing nothingness if space into the capsule and causing a red light to flash repeatedly above Ash's head. An arm came down through the slit and tore the metal outward, making the fissure even bigger. The figure reached down again, this time with its palm out and the arm extended a lot further down.

"Grab on, Ash. You don't want to die even quicker, do you?" the voice asked.

He shook his head and grabbed its wrist, bracing himself for his exit. This came a sudden jolt that yanked Ash out of the capsule and into space, leaving him, quite literally, breathless. He watched as the capsule floated away, the red light flashing meekly every few seconds or so before snuffing out. The nameless Tenno, or whatever allegiance he had sworn himself to, looked down at Ash and opened up two scales along each side of his armour. These gaps blasted white gas out into the vacuum, propelling the two forward into what looked like utter blackness. He then made a quick, swift movement of is fingers over his right thigh, which lit up by the faintest amount in response.

Within a few moments a rather small yet somehow intimidating slender ship uncloaked in front of Ash's eyes. It was slim down its front and back, with a small divide that came back round in the middle. The back of the ship housed engines that spat green flame into the airless void and struggling to stay alight. No lights could be seen from within the windows on the centre of the ship, leaving them eyelike and vacant. The front of the ship was whittled down to a point, leaving the entire vessel with the guise of a blade that seemed all too familiar to Ash; his Nikana.

 _My Nikana._

His heart leapt into his mouth as he smacked his hand into the side of his hip to feel for a holster that wasn't there. He swung round, tearing free of the stranger's grip to look back at the capsule. He zoomed in onto its interior, but his search yielded nothing. He had lost it.

"We have no time for grief, Ash. Time is pressing." He said, as if to read Ash's mind.

Ash's heart felt deader than it ever had before as he re-joined the stranger; to lose a weapon was one thing, to lose something as bonded to his soul as that sacred sword was different. It was like losing a limb, a connection severed by the cruel scissors of fate. He felt slightly detached; as if the broken piece of him had latched its hooks of sorrow into his soul and refused to give without tearing chunks out of it.

Slithers of insidious orange light crept through the eerie blackness of space as a door opened to the vessel, compelling Ash to turn his head away from the distant metal glint of the capsule. The pair landed softly on the metal grating of the ship and waited for the airlock door to slam shut. Once it did, the lights turned on and white gas hissed from small vents in the walls, illuminating a room with a pale green light that made the pervading gloom even more oppressing on the mind. Ash opened his helmet and breathed air again, wheezing a few times and ridding himself of the nasty chemicals used in the warframe's artificial air.

He followed the mysterious stranger down the metallic corridor into what looked to be helm of the ship. Unmanned consoles poured walls of text across their screens with no one to read them; the three chairs at the front for observation and ship navigation were also deserted. The wall on Ash's left bore a rack where a bristling assortment of weapons hung on rusted racks. He recognized nearly all of them, some not of Tenno design, but distinct nonetheless: the Braton, a solid, all-round efficient rifle still in use with all Initiate Tenno all throughout the system; the Jat Kittag, a Grineer hammer that brutalized piston-driven forces to pummel enemies into the ground with immense force; the Dera, a plasma Corpus rifle that disintegrated matter on contact; the Paris, a bow that used magnetic polarities at its mouth to fire bolts at nearly the speed of sound. All of this weaponry must have come from some Tenno armory, but how? This stranger was supposedly not of his kind, so it must have been bought some way or another.

He looked across to the centre chair of the helm, where the figure had already sat down and reclined in, spinning around and opening his palms out. A bow and quiver leaned against the wall next to him, what looked like modified Kunai lay scattered across the desk in front.

"Welcome to my domain, Ash. How do you find it?" The stranger asked with what sounded like genuine interest.

"Rather empty, as I would assume you know." Ash answered blankly.

"A looted Corpus snub fighter. It is nothing remarkable, but it has served me well for these past decades."

"Why did you bring me here?" Ash said abruptly, wishing to change the subject.

"Here is my offer. I would like you to join me in my cause, in return for saving your life."

"I don't even know who you are."

"You don't?" The stranger sounded almost hurt.

"Am I supposed to?"

"One would assume, yes."

"That's no matter. Why do you want me?"

"To seek redemption against those who have done harm to my kind."

"Doesn't everyone?"

"Yes, but I get paid for it. But lately, Ash, I have been losing clients. The market has gotten too advanced too fast, and I have no way of keeping up. I need your expertise in assassination and combat to help me on my contracts, and eventually to exact revenge on those who have done wrong in this wretched system."

"What contracts? Why not just join the Tenno cause?" Ash was getting impatient.

"I despise them. They have betrayed their creators, and so I hunt them." The stranger's tone darkened into a desolate, cold murmur.

"Yet here I am." Ash lifted his eyebrows, unimpressed.

"But they cast you away. You have been betrayed."

"What's your point?" Ash said after a moment of contemplation.

"I ask you to hunt everything in this system. Rid it of impurities, so we may walk out unscathed and clean. You have no one to call friends in your clan, no? Why fight for them anymore? I can see that you have no desire to, they've just left you for dead without a second thought." He let the words sink in before asking with a gravity Ash did not expect to hear, "So, do you still consider yourself a Tenno?"

Ash thought back to his fellow Tenno; the Saryn, who he despised for her constant aggravation but tolerated for her playful spirit; Umbra, who had sat through months of mental temperament on his mind just so he could be sane, but who had always scorned him for his sadistic thoughts and actions; Fenrir, who now lay dead in Nekros' sacred burial grounds, as if to have answered Ash's silent prayers for him to die. He looked back up at the seated figure, and shook his head.

"Then let us get started." The stranger replied with a shark-like grin.

Ash winced as the operation table's restraints clamped down on his elbow joints and knees. The stranger stood over his pale frame and, with surprising delicacy, picked up a diamond-tipped scalpel from an operating table. Ash was suspended in antiseptic fluid prior to the operation, so the stranger patted the incision markings on his side dry and began to cut. The scar that was only closed a few hours before was opened up again, making Ash grab the cushioned surface of the operating table and clench his fists until his knuckles went white. He let a small cry of pain loose from his lips, resulting in a mocking smirk from the stranger.

The small pain inhibitors implanted along his spine and neck instantly kicked into action, resulting in a soothing blanket of anesthetics and muscle relaxants flooding through his body and reducing the searing pain from his side to a dull throb. The stranger noticed his relaxation and began to work with more haste than care, working slim fingers round muscle tissue and inserting what looked like wires into his side.

"What are you going to do?" Ash demanded, but his voice lost its alarm through his drowsy state.

"Not much. I'm surprised your former colleagues could not see the solution to this problem." He began with a clear look of disappointment on his face. "I'm inserting a false transmitter of vital signs into the tracker. The tracker itself was disabled at your dojo, but the explosive is still primed. Running this transmission through it will make it believe it is still part of you; we can dispose of it safely afterward."

"Hmm. Just remember you die too if you fail." Ash stirred.

"Don't remind me, Ash." The stranger replied with an eye roll.

The two fell into silence once again, leaving the hushed drone of the bed and the whine of the scalpel to fill the air once more. The stranger grabbed two wires and, with great precision, guided them in through the divide. A small spark from inside made Ash nearly jump, but then the stranger took his hands out and held up a spherical metal ball with strands of sinew hanging from it up for Ash to see. He went over to a console and quickly tapped in a code, letting the cold void of space reach its hands into the operating room. Air rushed out into the blackness outside, taking the tracker with it.

The stranger then slammed a button on the side of the window and waited for it to hiss shut. When it did, he gestured with a brief point of his hand toward the window for Ash to look at. There was nothing for a few tense moments before an explosion tore through the vacuum and smothered the small operating room briefly with blinding blue light. Ash felt its shockwave ripple through the room and rattle a few instruments, and looked down at his side, wide-eyed.

"I… That was inside me?" Ash managed to make out, shocked, as he sat up.

"Yes. I think you understand now why those 'expert' surgeons of yours would rather not have taken the risk of removing that tracker."

Ash felt a retort rise up in his throat, but this was cut off by an uncomfortable tug at the opening in his side as the stranger sowed the wound shut with several thin threads. He sat up, facing the stranger, who had now gotten up and gone to inspect the servo-arms repairing his warframe.

"What now, then?" Ash broke the silence once again.

"Now? We go to see how you fight."

The dueling arena was reminiscent of Ash's chamber, with high, domed walls; the small platforms and ledges that were built high up on the walls; the small fissures in the ceiling that only allowed the most narrow rays of light through.

The stranger had decided upon using his scythe for the duel, giving Ash a small variety of stolen weapons to choose from. Ash browsed over his choices, which were hung upon a rack on the wall: a Prova sizzled with electrical energy, but its weight was unbalanced and ineffective, so Ash decided against it; a Fragor hammer, which used seismic force distributors upon landing a hit to deliver maximum energy, was also out of the question, for it was too heavy; a pair of Fang stilettos that struck a chord within his heart, making his chest hurt with painful recollection of Saryn; and finally, a rather peculiar looking sword that lay rested against the wall, not hung up on the rack like the others. This particular sword boasted a lean, slim edge on its blade, which had only the slightest of curves. Although unpowered, the sword radiated an aura of seemingly forgotten expertise of its previous owner. The groove along its blade had imprinted Orokin runes across its surface that could, under the more observant eye, be seen to be translated as:

" _Until death do us part."_

Ash stared with a keen interest at the blade; he gripped the handle and brought it to level with his eye, before cutting into the stale air a few times to test the balance. It handled well under Ash's speed, but, like with his old sword, there needed to be a connection. When he had connected this sword to his warframe AI, it had snapped its technological manifestation for jaws at him and coiled back against his will. It fought constantly, whispers scratching at his ears and seemingly supernatural energies pulsing against his hand and through his body.

 _Who are you?_

A voice rasped harshly from all around his mind; he couldn't seem to pinpoint it to one specific location, it seemed to come from everywhere at once; it was as if the black, looming walls were talking themselves.

Ash found himself looking at the sword with stark interest, gazing at its silver, glistening edge and the faded runes in the groove near the hilt. He closed his eyes and reached out with invisible arms towards the weapon.

 _I am Ash._

 _You are not my master._

 _Your master is dead. For now, I am._

 _You are a fool. You are… troubled._

 _That is no matter. You_ will _obey me._

The sword snapped its invisible jaws at him before drowning itself into the sea of whispers that scratched at Ash's mind. Ash turned to the dueling arena, where the stranger was sat, kneeling on something that looked to be a prayer mat.

He had taken his armour off and replaced it with some sort of ancient gown that cropped at his thighs and was tied with a black belt at the waist. The stranger had a ghastly white hair and even paler skin, which reminded Ash of his own reflection. However, where Ash's eyes were a shadowy grey, the stranger's glowed an insidious scarlet with a slight tinge of shrewd cunning. On his face he bore a large scar that ran across the centre of his forehead and behind a curtain of ashen hair. His lips curled ever so slightly into a frown as he looked up at Ash's selection.

"The Pangolin sword, I see. I would be careful with that, if I were you. It belonged to a Nyx who I had assassinated near the Phobos catacombs; that sword has something inside it that I would rather not allow to taint my mind." He explained, being careful not to look at the sword itself.

 _I guess I'm too late, then._

 _Ignore his words, corruption has taken him. He should not fear me, but himself._

 _I am to lock swords with a madman?_

 _Remember which sword you wield, Tenno._

"It will have to do." Ash answered.

"Very well. Shall we begin?" The stranger asked with an unerring kindness.


	10. Chapter 9

Ash landed hard on the cold, oaken floor of the dueling arena, sweat dripping from his forehead and a rivulet of blood trickling from his mouth. He winced at the pounding pain emanating out of his shoulder and through his skull. His suit pulsed and crackled with energy as he pounded an enraged fist into the floor and pushed himself up. He groaned as he stood up on shaky legs to face his opponent, who, with a satisfied grin, rose from an upward strike. Ash let what power remained in his warframe to trickle feebly into the sword, resulting in an even weaker response. He closed his eyes briefly to try and console with the spirit inside the sword, but to no avail. It said nothing, but its anxious, bloodshot eyes bore holes through his spirit entirely.

He raised his sword somewhat reluctantly with slithers of doubt beginning to shadow over his tired mind. The stranger had turned to face him, fingers drumming impatiently on his left hip and his scythe grinding back across to his right. Ash gritted his teeth and crouched, muscles tensed and waiting to strike. His sword sizzled with the same nervous anticipation.

"You aren't as fast as I had expected you to be, Ash. What's the matter? Giving up?" The stranger said, disappointed, as he leaned on the neck of his scythe.

"I'm… fine. Let's continue." Ash rasped with heavy breaths.

"Very well."

No sooner than the words passed the stranger's lips, Ash pounced, sword raised. The stranger looked up in surprise and brought his scythe up in defense. Ash landed right before him and swung his sword upward, clipping a shoulder plate with a small spark. The stranger jumped back and raised his weapon once again, hands clenched. Ash charged with a raised sword, ready to come down with a two-handed cleave. The stranger offered his scythe up for a parry, but Ash had feinted, side-stepped and kicked him in the side with a brutal connection before he even realised. The stranger stumbled and brought his weapon round for another flurry of attacks. Again and again, Ash cleaved and swung at his opponent, again and again, he missed by hair-widths and millimeters.

 _This one's a challenge._

Upon one of his many inhumanly fast attacks, the stranger stopped the sword with his scythe's handle and parried the strike with savage force. Ash recoiled and flipped backwards, catching himself with a somewhat graceful handspring. He landed on the balls of his feet with a small grunt, the Pangolin sword trembling in his fingers and thrashing about supernaturally. In a bestial rage, it snapped.

 _You have no control. No discipline. Your bloodstream is filling with carbon dioxide. Continue like this, and you will fall before you draw blood._

After a moment of deliberation, its voice softened but lost none of its sinister edge.

 _Do not leave me here, Ash. This man has an even more disturbed, twisted mind than you do. He is on the brink of insanity._

Ash felt somehow surprised by this; the sword's spirit had offered him nothing but curses, pain and torment for his brief conversations with it; its voice sounded like it was begging, an apologetic plea for help that didn't seem to be answered for however many forsaken years it had been left in this place. He felt pity for a reason he didn't quite know, but some force urged him on.

The stranger had now managed to steady himself and regain most of his strength, but, under the ghastly white light, he saw that the man before him had suffered lacerations down the abdomen and a few slashes across the arms. Chest heaving, he swung his scythe backward and charged forward.

Ash tried to block the outward strike with his sword, but the force of the charge knocked him down on the ground and punched the air out of his lungs. He tried to stand back up, but this was met with a swift bash in the face with the butt of the scythe's handle. Ash looked up with weary eyes at the stranger, shapes and colors mixing in a viscous pool of grey and white. He saw the faded shape of the scythe raising against the blinding white light of the ceiling, it's crooked end glistening with a single filament that…

Suddenly, his vision went white, then blood-red, veins pounding from the sides of his eyes. He remembered hours of agony on a cold operating table after being struck by the weapon that sang its damned name across the stars themselves. The crooked end, the edge of the blade, the daggers, the bow, the armor; the shattered memories began to fall into place. He finally had relieved the itch that was digging its way into his mind. This was the Firstborn. The Stalker.

"Wait." Ash wheezed, at last.

"You don't look like the type for mercy, Ash." The Stalker lowered his scythe, but only slightly.

"I know…" Ash hesitated.

"Hmm?"

"Who you are…" Ash said as he slowly stood back up, his sword pulsating with newfound energy.

The "stranger" lowered his scythe, eyebrows raised in sudden interest. His eyes narrowed and his scarlet irises shrunk, his lips parting slightly in final realization. This then turned into a cunning smile, one that unsettled Ash with its shark-like features.

"It was about time. I was starting to think that you had lost your edge, brother." The Firstborn chuckled.

"Brother? _Brother_?!" Disbelief rushed unwelcome into Ash's voice.

"Why do you act surprised? I am your kin, after all. For what other reason would I be the Firstborn?" The stranger said blankly.

"Firstborn?" He lowered his sword.

"Oh, you don't know?"

"Know _what?_ "

"No wonder your clan wiped you."

"They… what?"

"Oh, this is VERY interesting. I think I know what's going on." The Stalker crowed as he shouldered his scythe, pacing slowly along the wall to Ash, like a tiger stalking a juicy pig with glistening lips.

 _The bastard is enjoying this._

"Well, allow me to explain. You've been lied to, my friend. You've been lied to _a_ _lot_. By your supposed 'friends', your leaders, everyone."

"But how…" Ash's mouth hung slightly ajar, barely whispering the words.

"Very simple. They wanted to 'protect' you from your memories, so they wiped you. But you know what? I remember what you saw. Because I was _there._ "

 _No…_

"It wasn't hard. Our people ran, instead of fighting. The few that did, I cut them down with ease. Their blood was weak. I felt it."

Was that a tear, which trickled so painfully slowly down Ash's cheek?

"Yes, Ash, how does it feel? Hmm? That all the people you called kin are dead? At my hand?"

 _You…_

"Do you want to kill me now? I bet you do."

 _You're insane._

"Come on, then, Venator. Bring your worst."

"You are not worth my worst, you twisted fuck. I can promise you something, though."

"And what is that?" The stranger inquired, scythe now scraping back to his side.

Ash did not answer. He merely reached out to his newfound ally, and told it one thing:

 _I_ will _kill him._

The sword didn't answer in speech, but more so in itself. Small slithers of smoke began to trail from out of the runes, which had started to shine with a light of their own. A pale grey shimmer ran over the edge of the sword, making small arcs of electricity fire and dance across the surface. Ash looked down at the sword, and back at the Stalker. His eyes narrowed to slits, and he charged, sword poised to strike. Ash slid

The Stalker had blocked his attack with the tip of the scythe, and now the two had locked blades that spat energy at each other under the immense pressure of both the warframes' strength. The Pangolin sword strained under the force, but its spirit buckled and fought with flashes of power from the runes along its groove, not giving one inch.

"Honestly? This was your plan?" The stranger asked through clenched teeth, unimpressed.

With this, he threw himself forward and cut across the sword, leaving it to clatter on the floor next to Ash. Ash tried to reach for it, but this was stopped by a white-hot dagger that imbedded itself right into the floor in front of his hand. He recoiled back and looked up at the Stalker. Those insidious, scarlet eyes piercing his mind were the only things he saw when the scythe came down; the rest was pain and blackness.

As Ash knew, the universe did not afford him such luxuries as dying. He awoke a few seconds after the scythe had come down on some part of him; he couldn't see with through all of the blood spattered across his torso, the blurry shapes that mixed together in his vision and the wracking pain that sent uncontrollable shudders through his body.

He struggled to remember why he had charged in the first place. Surely it was… it was something he saw from outside the window. A small glint. A tiny twinkle of a long, gleaming blade spinning out into eternity, so very slowly. He remembered the augment installed into his gauntlet, but he couldn't quite remember what it was for.

While he lay there, on the cold oaken floor, Ash saw the Firstborn slowly turning round and freeing his scythe from the wound in Ash's body; Ash didn't look down to see, for it would probably remind him of the blinding pain that was only just being withheld with anesthetics.

He knew that he would not have another opportunity to kill the Stalker; he felt the black claws of death already pulling him down. If only he could remember what he was supposed to… The gauntlet, yes, there was something about it. Something that joined him and the Nika…

My Nikana.

So it wasn't lost. He merely needed to call out to it. But how? The Vauban hadn't elaborated on the subject; it wasn't something that he could will for, like his warframe components.

"Warning, heart rate falling far below expected levels." A soft female voice spoke from his earpiece; somehow soothing, considering the dire situation, Ash thought. He thought of letting his body bleed white and leave him to die on this ship, forgotten and cast away. It seemed fitting, that he, the seventh son of Apex, would die alone; he would be the lone hunter, the slayer of the Ares prototype, the lone survivor of the Invictus project. The man who saw Hek's damned face and live. But Ash had no time for legends. His time to die was not now.

He stuck out an open palm toward the shining blade that was tumbling away further and further by the minute. He steadied his shallow, ragged breathing and wiped his wet brow, focusing on activating the gauntlet's energy. He willed for the sword to come, to return to its mortally wounded owner and do him one more deed. He tried to grab it with invisible arms, but it was futile. Nothing seemed to work. Disbelief, frustration, anger and desperation mixed into one vile cocktail in his throat, making Ash splutter blood over his warframe and cough from the nausea in his chest.

He nearly whimpered then, he nearly cried. But Ash immediately pushed away those pathetic emotions and impulses and started to repeat the mantra passed down through the Venatii for whenever they were in peril, disbanded, alone, or even on the verge of death:

"Dominus noster, venator animarum nos protegat. Educ nos una, quia cadamus quando nos separati sunt." He muttered in low, wheezing words. He opened his eyes to the light once more, and looked out; past the Firstborn, who had begun to pace slowly towards the weapons rack by the window, dragging his heavy scythe on the ground behind him as he went; past the huge, tattered curtains that waved and drifted over the twinkling lights of the distant stars; and out towards the light glimmer that spun and spun towards the endless corners of the universe.

It shuddered as he softly spoke the words, and began to slow its tumbling through nothingness… and turn towards him. Yes, it was moving faster, coming and flying directly to him. Now all he needed to do was to…

"Firstborn…" He uttered hoarsely.

"Oh? You're still alive? Would you like a quicker death?" The Stalker got up, somehow not revealing any surprise in his voice at all.

"Hah. Do your worst." Ash spat.

"Oh, but of course. You don't deserve to die of mere blood loss. How about I cut you into pieces, and feed you to the Void Stalkers?" The Stalker asked, as if out of genuine curiosity.

Ash merely rested his head against the wall and looked up at the ceiling, counting the slow, soft steps of the Stalker coming towards him and the ominous, harsh grinding of his scythe; louder and louder. Palm still raised, he repeated the mantra and waited for the crash.

And sure enough, it came. Not as destructive as Ash had hoped, but it sufficed enough to burst through the blast windows in a shower of glass, fly across the room at impossible speed and run straight through the Stalker's body, leaving his chest cavity a shower of murky black blood and broken bone. He stared in horror at the shining sword that sang a single, beautiful note across the high, domed walls of the chamber; it seemed to block out the sound of the rushing air at the window or the blaring sirens that screeched across the ship.

What the Stalker did next, however, was something that Ash both admired and abhorred. The Stalker's expression turned from surprise, disbelief and horror to a small smirk, then a nervous chuckle, then a roaring, insane cackle. He grabbed the blade with both hands, seeming to not care for the immense damage being done to his bare hands, and broke it.

It splintered across the middle, the tip dropping out of his bloody left hand and leaving the rest of the blade a jagged, broken slant.

His sanity, broken as the sword in his chest, left him after that. He collapsed, laughing and hacking up blotches and masses of black liquid and globs of gored flesh. Ash watched this horrifying display of a truly destroyed man die for many minutes, before the Hunter of the Tenno, the Stalker, the Firstborn of the Venatii, fell to the floor, borne a still corpse.

Ash shuddered and stared at the body of the Stalker, not quite believing in the nightmares that his eyes had offered him. He exhaled and swallowed, allowing moisture back into his hoarse, dry throat. His senses seemed to return to him now, for the pounding in his head had begun to intrude upon his thoughts once more, and the same, repetitive, wailing noises that came from the alarms had-

"Shit! The oxygen!" Ash swore.

He jerked his head quickly from one corner of the room to the other, trying to frantically find the failsafe catch. After some time, he found it situated next to a group of lockers with heavy Corpus suits on the other side of the room. He sighed wearily at this and looked for a solution. He spotted an ornate-looking revolver strapped to the arm of the pale corpse not a few meters from him.

He prepared himself to move, clenching his thigh muscles and allowing the last few liters of blood to pump round his body. After some preparation for the worst, he slowly turned and grabbed at the oaken floor. Slowly, but surely, he managed to get within reaching distance. Ash grabbed the leather holster and closed his weak fingers around the grip. The gun itself was incredibly hard to hold straight; whether this was because of his rapidly deteriorating condition, Ash did not know.

He trembled once again and took aim at the flashing button near the lockers. After a few shuddering breaths, he fired. It kicked up high in his hand, striking his forehead with the barrel.

After shaking his head a few times to get rid of the persistent whining in his ears from the loudness of the gunshot, Ash sighed in relief as he saw a large metal screen close over the breached window and hissed shut.

And, as the light from the stars was slowly snuffed out, one by one, Ash's world fell into the same darkness. Perhaps, was his last thought, he wouldn't ever see the dawn again.


	11. Chapter 10

Antheia hadn't cried for a long, long time. It had been nearly decades since she had done so. Her 'enlightenment' had consisted of many different drug trials and organ augmentations, all but the most vital surgeries made in tight, choking operating rooms with a feeble anesthetic. She had cried for days on end - sometimes making her throat raw from sobbing and wailing, the skin around her red eyes hurt from the slightest touch and her body succumb to an endless, helpless trembling.

The pain had simply been too much; both the faded scars down her pale skin and horrible afflictions on her frail conscious had all done their damage. Of course, when she had been reawaken from stasis, her memories and pain had been forgotten; a blank, white slate just ready for whole new feast of horrors from the new universe she had been thrown into. But, as all wounds untended go, they were reopened. It had happened upon her psychological examination from one of her birth clan's Nyxs. She had thrashed and kicked once the memories were reopened – and she cried. She wept until her mind could not hold her fragile body together and let her loose to the unconscious. It was many months until she received a visitor. This visitor had given no introduction, no forewarning, no letter in advance. Antheia did remember one thing, however: the visitor had given her a gift.

It was a small Venus flytrap. It may not have seemed to the others like a commodity or a luxury, but in the dark, brooding atmosphere of the psych ward it was a solace from her daily tortures, a salvation to keep her troubled thoughts at bay. The visitor, with a kind, sympathetic voice that could have only belonged to a mother, softly said with a warm smile,

" _Keep him safe."_

Antheia had gazed up with huge, innocent eyes that seemed to shine with a new light, one that radiated with hope and disbelief. She had said nothing, simply running to the woman and hugging her with all her feeble strength. The visitor had chuckled at the sudden affection and embraced Antheia. She lowered her head and whispered into Antheia's ear.

" _Just promise me one thing, alright?"_

Antheia looked up once again, and nodded quickly.

" _Don't cry."_ said the woman, with a warmth and compassion that Antheia could barely even believe.

Antheia struggled to contain her tears, and eventually started crying again; this time from happiness. After a long moment of pleasant silence, Antheia looked up, wiped the tears from her brow and whispered her first weak word since her wakeup.

" _Okay."_

The visitor had given her one more angelic smile before the door shut behind her, and then Antheia had been alone again, apart from the small plant in a tiny porcelain pot sat in her fragile palms. She curiously tried to touch it, only for it to snap its jaws suddenly and clamp down on her finger. She cried out, but didn't drop it.

After that, every day, she had nurtured it as her own mother nurtured her, feeding it and slowly watching it grow. Before she knew it, it had surpassed her height and nearly reached the ceiling of her chamber. When she had been cleared of psychological illness – and her recurrent nightmares – she had been moved to her own chamber, allowed to finally don her Saryn warframe once again. The flytrap, which had grown to impossible size, followed her through the ventilation into the room. It had somehow developed consciousness through the altered growth control of Antheia's biological augmentations, and now it gave her a small cocoon in its mouth where she slept, safe from the outside world.

Antheia fondly remembered these faded recollections with a wet smile as she sat the flytrap's head, looking out across the meadow that was her chamber. She had even forgotten the reason why she was crying, for a single moment. Then it came back to her.

The news that had been delivered with next to no emotion by the Nekros. She had punched him out of anger and frustration before he had even finished giving her the details of Ash's farewell to the Void. She didn't know why she hadn't yet apologized, but her mind was still too clouded with black grief and anger to think as her normal self.

Then, after the door had shut, she had cried again; just like when she was a lost young woman entering the new world from cryosleep.

Antheia sighed, wiping her red eyes and patting the flytrap on its head. It obeyed, lowering its head and allowing her to step softly onto the mossy floor. She cradled it and pecked a kiss on its head before turning on the ball of her foot and stepping through the hanging plants and branches guarding the path to the door. They reacted instantly to her presence and bowed down, as if servants before their queen's arrival.

She stuck her hands through the plants on either side and smiled when they reacted, caressing her fingers with gentle strokes. The mellow artificial sunlight in her chamber reached through the canopy and down onto her face, making her smile broader and broader. She giggled slightly as she walked through; all this fauna and flora had been of her creation, of her hands.

They had been her sole sanctuary against the irrepressible gloom that pervaded upon her mind for the countless days she had spent in the Steel Fury wing. Being here had not been her choice; the Clan Warlord had decided, and his decision was final. He covered his reason to move her in the guise of "improving teamwork and sense of self-awareness". Indeed, it had been taking five bullets through the abdomen that had landed her in the Medicanum for nearly a month, and so giving the Warlord a reason to move her. She knew that the Warlord saw her as a liability, so it was all more the reason to fight.

She thought back to her initial deployment to the wing as she strolled down the never-ending corridors of the sleeping quarters. As with all redeployments, it had been nerves and mostly loneliness that had met her in the beginning. Her garden had been her only acquaintance for the endless days pacing about her chamber and drifting aimlessly about the dojo until she had been given her first mission, involving sabotage.

It had been the Banshee, who led the squad; an Excalibur, who had also been transferred to the wing, but had eons more experience in comparison; her, although her superiors had had doubts on her abilities and skills in stealth; and Ash. It was the same Ash that had been cast away not hours ago; but it seemed like years. Everything had been going to plan on the mission; the guards had been eliminated and the console to the reactor had been cracked without any particular hassle. The problem came when Antheia had caused an error in the system by inputting the incorrect password. She remembered the sinking feeling of dread and the quickening of her breath as she panicked.

Alarms flared, turrets rose from their dormant states with guns bristling. The Excalibur had barely escaped, the Banshee had been wounded and she, a mere recruit in comparison, had been given the heavy burden of leader responsibility. She crumpled. It had been too much at once. She almost felt like surrendering, but a firm grip on her arm stopped this thought. She looked up, expecting to see the grim mask of a Grineer Lancer. Instead she found the expressionless face of Ash frowning down on her, somehow filling her with relief in place of burning shame. She remembered how he shoved her sub-machinegun on her chest and merely nodded, before running back into the fray of Grineer marines. She watched eagerly as he killed and murdered without hesitation, without ambivalence, without delay. He was made for this. She did not even have to fire her weapon afterward. She had carried the Banshee to safety with absolutely no hindrance. The only thing she had to look out for was not stepping in all the bodies and entrails Ash had left strewn across the halls.

After that, she had clung to him, despite all of his indigenous protests and complaints. She had looked up to him, and he had always looked down on her; this, she realized as she sat down, no matter how much she pushed away the thought, was the cause for so much grief and sadness when he had gone. She rested her tired head against the wall as she breathed out, letting some of the pent-up stress and sorrow spill out into the still air of the dojo. Then, after some futile attempts to stop the sick feeling in her throat, her tears hit the ground once more.

" _Antheia?"_

A voice echoed from around her, her head trying to follow it in surprise. After realizing who the voice belonged to, she sighed half in relief and the other in embarrassment before hanging her head in her knees again.

"Leave me alone."

She mumbled meekly.

" _You know me enough to know that I won't stop pestering you, Antheia."_ The voice replied warmly.

"I said, leave me alone." Irritation started to rise in Antheia's hoarse throat.

" _It's something you would probably want to know_." The voice kept her reassuring tone, if not only becoming slightly sterner.

Antheia thought to herself on whether she should continue with her introverted, apathetic guise – it wasn't that she had forgotten her reason for crying, but the voice had enticed her enough to lift her head with interest.

"Make it quick." Antheia snapped, immediately regretting her sudden harshness. Before she could apologize, the voice merely replied with _"Of course."_ seemingly ignoring it completely.

After a small pause, Antheia felt the air move so very slightly across her ears. She opened her eyes to see that she no longer sat in the cold corridor of the resting quarters, but in a dark room lit only by the dim, lilac-colored lights pulsating slowly across the walls. The room had an aromatic smell about it, especially the definite tinge of jasmine that tingled her senses.

The lights rose again to illuminate a figure to her right she had not seen before, which made her jump slightly when it approached from behind her shoulder. The curved forward arch of the Nepthys helmet made her smile in relief as the figure came to face her. It placed two fingers on its temple and drew a couple of circles, engaging the release catch. When the light brightened again, Antheia fully saw the sleepless features that dragged on her old friends face.

Rings hung under her tired eyes, which matched the color of the lights and were partly covered by loose strands of unkempt auburn hair. Her face seemed rather sullen and distant, but apparently the presence of Antheia brought some life back to her face. She seemed almost frail, and the skintight warframe armour hardly made her look any less so.

"What on earth hap-"

"Never mind, I'm fine." The Nepthys cut her off with more impatience in her voice than anything.

Antheia opened her mouth to reply, but decided against it. The Nepthys continued.

"You're not the only one who is affected by Ash leaving us. Not just him, but the other three as well."

She paused.

"He was my mentor, you know?" She shrugged as she sat down.

Antheia simply nodded in respect, although this was all news to her.

After more uncomfortable silence, she spoke up again.

"So, what was it you wanted to tell me about, Ilene?"

"I couldn't believe it myself when Ash left us, so I focused my psynapse to try and find any signs of life. I looked near the void space in which we left him, but there was nothing. I did, however, catch a glimpse of a fleeting Corpus ship going in no particular direction. Naturally, I thought this as out of the ordinary, so I decided to look into it."

Antheia smiled slightly at her curiosity; Ilene was just like her sister.

"It took me a while to follow it into the void, which might explain why I haven't slept in two days." She said wearily as she drew half-circles under her eyes.

"Anyway," She continued. "I found life. Not surprising, but it was only one life form, and there was a weak trace of autonomous signal coming from an unspecified warframe. It was too early to make assumptions then, but I think now, with further psynapse scanning, I've found him."

Antheia didn't reply; she simply smiled, then chuckled, and then laughed out loud. She knocked the air out of Ilene's lungs as she embraced her. She began to cry, this time out of pure elation and joy.

"Thank you… so much." She managed to make out through her sobbing.

"You…too, Antheia. But please, let go of me; I think you might be killing me now." Ilene wheezed.

"No, no, of course." Antheia apologized as she let go, wiping her tears. "It's just good to have something good to hear through this whole nightmare we've been through lately."

The Nephthys simply smiled impishly. Antheia got up and, rather too eagerly, grabbed her wrist.

"What are you-"

"What do you mean? We need to rescue Ash. He might not have that much time left!" Antheia urged.

Ilene hesitated briefly before nodding and getting up to face her.

"Let's do it." Ilene said as her lips began to curl into a devilish smile, to which Antheia did the same.


	12. Chapter 11

"No. The mission you propose is too dangerous, unreliable, and most of all, has no proof of any reason to consider. Besides, the Ash has already been cast out towards the Void for over twenty hours, and the pod only supports life for five. I apologize, but the risk far outweighs the reward; assuming there even is a reward. You are dismissed, Tenno." The Clan General said flatly, his grey irises piercing straight through Antheia.

"Bu-"Ilene began to argue.

"Dismissed." He repeated, this time it came out as an order.

Antheia felt the last dregs of hope leave her system and be replaced by tongues of hot fury as the Frost finished. The sick feeling of disbelief and betrayal rose immediately to her throat once more, making her choke back a spiteful insult. She wanted to scream at the expressionless face of the General for reasons she could not find; she felt she had to let the emotions pent up inside her gush out like free waters from a floodgate, uncaring for any of the consequences that might follow. Her amaranth eyes seemed to glow for a moment and small wisps of pale green smoke clutched at her trembling fingers. But, out of the few small shreds of respect that she had for the man stood before her, she kept her wicked tongue and her powers at bay.

She grabbed Ilene by the arm and marched out of the cold quarters of the General, leaving him only an infuriated glare before the doors hissed shut. The Nephthys shook off Antheia's hand and leaned against the opposite wall, sinking down to the floor and burying her face in her hands. She let out an exasperated sigh and looked up at her.

"What do we do now?" She seemed to plead more than ask.

Antheia simply did not know how to answer her, so she kept her stormed silence and dwelled on a plan. The Clan General was the highest authority in the entire Forward Attack division of the Clan, so there was no asking anyone of higher authority to help them on a minor mission such as this one. She thought of turning to any of her friends, but a sharp stab of hurt intruded upon her thoughts when she realized, with a horrible sinking feeling, that there was no one to turn to apart from the young Nyx before her.

"Ilene," She began suddenly, the Nephthys raising her head from her folded knees. "I have a plan. But it involves someone you might not want to see."

"I don't follow." She replied with a confused expression on her face.

"Have you spoken to your sister in a while?" Antheia asked, dreading the answer.

"Why would I ever do that?" Ilene looked more offended than anything.

"Well, it's been so long since I've seen either of you talk, let alone be in the same room as each other."

"That bitch is the reason why I've been grounded in this dojo for nearly a year. She's always stealing contracts and being recommended for promotions, whereas I stay here and collect dust in my chamber!" She raised her voice, becoming angrier as she spoke.

Antheia kept her calmness and simply asked:

"Do you want Ash back, or not?"

"Well, o-of course." Her cheeks flushed red as she stammered. "This wing would be boring without someone to talk to."

"I know how you feel, but you two need to set aside your childish, petty differences if you want your mentor back." Antheia scolded. They might have all been through a hellish experience in the Void before they had donned these suits, but extensive mental wiping of such awful memories really managed to show the human before the war, she noticed; Ilene was still just an adolescent.

"Whatever. Let's go." Ilene murmured, defeated, as she placed a delicate hand on Antheia's shoulder and the ground fell away before them.

"Well, this certainly wasn't something I was expecting." Umbra smirked as she turned her head to the two visitors by the doors.

After getting up and turning to face the pair, the easy look on her face to one of irritation and abhorrence. Immediately, the rims of her warframe started to glow faintly green, with small tails of psychic energy whisking round her arms. She jabbed her finger straight at Ilene and stared Antheia straight in the eyes.

"Care to explain?" Umbra demanded, only just restraining the anger in her voice.

"Umbra, I need you to listen to me. I can only do this if you calm down and listen to me." Antheia pleaded.

The tendrils that had circled around her arms before now slowed and faded, but the pulsating psychic energy around her helm still thrashed and kicked violently.

"Fine. What was so important that you had to bring _her_ into it?" She spat.

Antheia let out a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding and took a step closer, creating some space between the two siblings.

"As you probably know already, Ash is supposedly dead. I say supposedly, because your very kind sister," she smiled briefly to Ilene as she said this, "managed to find life traces in a ship nearby to where we last tracked him. The trace is coming from an Ash warframe, and there isn't anything for hundreds of miles that comes close. He still might make it if we hurry."

A tense silence followed, neither parties saying a word. Ilene was the first to break it.

"She's tells the truth, sister. Look inside my mind. Tell me I'm lying." She said bravely as she placed two fingers on her temple. After some hesitation, Umbra reluctantly did the same. The two sisters stood in silence for several moments before opening their eyes and resuming their psychic duel.

"She speaks the truth, for once." Umbra spat the last part with particular revulsion, as if it were poison on her tongue.

"Shut your mouth, you're the liar here, you, you-!" Rage began to take over as Ilene shouted straight back at her sister. Before she could finish her sentence, her mouth immediately clapped shut and her hands went to her throat.

"What is it, Ilene? Can't think of something to say? Having trouble breathing?" Umbra grinned with giddy glee as Ilene collapsed.

"Let. Me. _GO_!" Ilene screamed as a wave of air streaked at blinding speed towards Umbra, throwing her like a ragdoll against the wall and into the shallow water, which released the grip on her throat. The force knocked Antheia back as she tried to stand between them, knocking the air out of her lungs and sending her tumbling into a corner.

The air seemed to shake as the two minds struggled and fought with equal force. Four-legged lilac forms began to take shape on the water while transparent green daggers streaked towards Ilene. The forms ducked under the daggers and ran straight towards Umbra, claws beginning to form from their smoky legs. The daggers dissipated like sand when they hit Ilene, as did the familiars with Umbra.

The two sisters rose to face each other once again. Psychic energy trailed from their eyes, which now glowed with fury. Their warframes pulsated and throbbed with newfound strength, both forming smoking, rune-painted weapons. Ilene's grew a pair of huge serrated blades running from the forearms and well over a meter past her fingertips, whereas Umbra's revealed a fan of deadly throwing knives.

A single, silent moment passed before the two sisters broke loose, unbound of their psychic chains. Energy bled across the room, making the air shake every few seconds as they fought. Umbra let loose her endless streams of daggers at Ilene, who sliced and hacked them apart until both of them were left catching their breath, exhausted. Then, after gulping down their tiredness, they continued with new strength, found only through some demonic fury.

Ilene side-stepped as the first dagger flew towards her and leaped across the chamber at Umbra, who barely managed to continue with her constant stream of psychic fire. Ilene landed not a foot in front of her, one of the blades barely touching her throat. Umbra stared down at the huge sword extended at her with wide eyes, making Ilene smirk. The blade grew ever so slightly; burning a small incision in Umbra's throat with a sick, sizzling sound that made Umbra wince slightly at first, then cry out in pain.

"You may have your fancy mind-control, but remember that I can do things which even the mighty Nyx warframe can't. Think about that next time you try to choke me, you good-for-nothing bi-"

"What the _hell_ is going on in here?!" demanded a furious voice from the other side of the room.

Ilene turned her head to the approaching Ember by the door as she lowered her sword. Umbra saw her chance and swatted away Ilene's sword before sending an almighty kick into her solar plexus. The gap in between her ribs and her abdomen amplified the force, leaving her sprawled across the stone-cobbled pathway. Umbra instantly summoned a knife to her hand and lifted her arm to throw it, only for the knife to explode into a ball of white flame. She gasped as the flame ate through her armour, leaving only bare skin as it went out. Cradling her hand she looked up at the Ember, arms crossed and a furious flame glowing in her eyes.

The warframes clawed feet scraped across the wet cobblestone as she advanced slowly toward Umbra, never averting her searing gaze. The Ember stopped right before Umbra, barely over her height but still managing to extinguish her bravado and bow her head in submission. The Ember's dark skin smelled of burning coal as she came close and her amber irises burned holes through her.

It was this hardened exterior that came with the rank of Lead Exarch; a position which was earned through extensive mastery of multiple warframes and, indeed, acts of incredible bravery. She was well known, however, for being very impulsive, which had often been somewhat of a mystery to everyone in the wing.

" _Well?_ Are you going to answer my question, or do I need to burn your hand off completely to get an answer?" The Ember's voice was laced with hot fury, which still had not died down since she had entered.

Umbra knew anything she said would be to the detriment of her and, as much as she hated to admit it, her sister. She instead tried to reach into the Ember's mind, but at the lightest psychic touch she recoiled, burned by the flaming barrier that rippled, unseen, across her form.

"Don't try any of your psychic bullshit with me, Umbra. I want a straight answer." The Ember said sternly.

"It's alright, Ember, I can explain." Antheia winced as she got up from the corner.

She turned her head towards Antheia with raised eyebrows, gesturing her free hand outward.

"Go ahead. Make my day." She replied with a shark grin.

"So it's Ash we're trying to find then, huh?" The Ember spoke up after Antheia finished.

"Yes. But now that you know, I guess it doesn't matter now, does it?" Ilene huffed from the edge of the water pool.

"Actually, it does." She replied, somehow sounding surprised at herself.

"What do you mean?" Ilene asked, puzzled.

"That bastard owes me over twenty thousand in credits, and if he thinks he can fake his death to get away, then he has another thing coming for him." She laughed.

"That's all and good, but we don't have official approval. There isn't any sort of transport we could take there, either. So unless any of you have any bright ideas, we're well and truly grounded here." Umbra grumbled from atop a ledge on the other side of the room, as far as she could get from her sister.

Antheia Maybe it had been the blind grief, or perhaps the naïveté when she had formulated the plan, but she had never considered what would happen if their idea was rejected. This invited the common, poisonous jealousy that all the Tenno had for each other into her heart; the envy of each other's powers. Antheia often, in extreme cases, resented the Nyx for her manipulation of the mind and superior intellect.

To her, it was unfair that the Nyx was able to so powerfully use her mind as a weapon, and the Nepthys to conjure things into existence and manipulate the very fabric of space-time itself to teleport through the void of space in seconds.

" _Wait a second…"_ Antheia's eyes widened in realization and her lips began to curl into a devious smile.

"Umbra, how far is your effective range for any sort of psynapse connection?" She called out from her corner.

"Huh? Umm… I can travel about a kilometer; anything further takes too much power. Why, exactly?" Ilene sat up with a confused look on her face.

"And Umbra, how far can you reach out for with psynapse?" Antheia ignored her question and turned her attention to the Nyx sat on the ledge.

"Well, about 15 kilometers, but that can be extended if I use the Beacon atop the Dojo to about half the system. Why is that important?" Umbra replied with equal puzzlement.

Antheia's smile simply grew into a grin, after which she asked rather too proudly: "What if you both used your abilities at the Beacon to get there? Psychic symbiosis, if I'm not mistaken."

The Ember looked at her somewhat blankly before she came to the same realization, with the same smirk coming to her.

"I like your thinking, Antheia. I forgot that siblings could do that." She praised.

The sisters, however, reacted less fondly to this news. Umbra blew away a drifting lock of hair as she looked round to her sister, who faced in the other direction and sulked. Antheia sighed.

"Both of you, come here. I don't care if you don't like each other, but this is for the best."

They both exchanged uneasy looks before returning to their sulking expressions. Ilene disintegrated and re-formed right of Antheia, whereas Umbra, rather reluctantly, jumped down and sat by her left. Pleased with at least some kind of response, Antheia closed her eyes and took a deep breath before she let the gas hiss from her collar outward. The Ember immediately shut her air vents, and took a tenacious step backward.

The sisters' reaction was unsurprising; their faces turned to ones of shock, and for a moment Antheia was reminded of the flash of despair she saw on the captive's face, back on the Grineer ship. But as soon as they took the slightest of breaths, their expressions went blank, staring a thousand yards into the distance, no emotion. Antheia chuckled to herself and placed a finger on Ilene's forehead, then Umbra's.

"I hate to ask, Antheia, but what did you do to them?" The Ember broke her taut silence, not quite wanting to hear the answer.

"A simple alternative to chloroform; instead of knocking you out, your mind goes blank, as do your memories; perfect against someone with mind barriers as thick as these."

"And what good does that do you?"

"My warframe can specifically engineer gases to my needs, so this one makes people come under my control if they breathe this in. Something I wanted to mention, actually: you might not want to breathe for the next thirty seconds or so."

And with that, Antheia continued with her work. Her hands passed over the eyes of the sisters, making them cloud over with a grey film. Satisfied, she leaned their heads in close to hers and whispered slowly but clearly.

"You are sisters. You will work together. You will activate this beacon, or so help me, this will be nerve gas next time." She said with a voice that couldn't have been warmer.

They collapsed into her arms. She caught them gently and set them down against the black stone wall.

 _They sleep so peacefully, like little children._

"Are they okay? What the hell did you do to them?!" The Ember exclaimed as she jumped from her ledge and rushed over to their bodies.

"Hush, sister. They're simply unconscious. Just don't go near them when they wake up; they're going to have a horrible headache."

The viewing gallery from the Beacon at the top of the dojo was something truly beautiful. Nowhere else, Antheia thought, could you stare out into the wide emptiness of space, seeing the marbles of planets slowly rolling by. The blanket that enveloped the Void was littered with stars; shining bright and clear like lighthouses upon a dark sea. Apart from the distant hum of the dojo's generators, it was perfectly quiet. Antheia breathed out, casting away the stresses and frustrations that the past few days had given her into the air.

The Beacon itself was something else entirely. The golden spire slanted towards the dark heavens above, reminiscent of the huge mountains of the Old Earth. It pulsed with wild energy at its peak. Three rings, held together by this unseen force, levitated around the Beacon and spun lazily. Four chairs sat facing towards the spire, each with their own mind uplink terminals with large cables winding and twisting into the golden obelisk in front of them.

A slow groan rose from the wall behind her. Her hand went to her hip for a sword that was not there as she turned round. She found herself relieved somehow, for it was merely Ilene stirring from her drug-induced sleep. The Nephthys' eyes fluttered open and her head lolled for a moment before her eyes snapped forward and she doubled over with another pained groan. Her sister started to wake as well, though her reaction was somewhat more controlled to low moans and coughs.

"Wha… Where are we?" Ilene finally managed to make out.

"Yeah, what are we doing here?" Umbra stirred.

"Wait, I think I remember." Ilene seemed almost drunk, much to the amusement that both the Ember and Antheia desperately tried to hide.

"Yes, it's all coming back. We're here to help get to Ash. That's…That's what we're here to do" Umbra nodded sleepily.

"Come on, you two, wake up. We don't have much time." The Ember snapped, losing her humorous mood instantly. Antheia sighed at this; it was hard to see the Ember in a good way, no matter how hard she tried.

The Umbra got up and helped her sister up before rubbing her head and grimacing. The two slowly made their way to the seats surrounding the Beacon and slumped into the ones sat opposite each other. Umbra straightened up and engaged the eye cover over her psynapse helmet, as did Ilene. The Nyx breathed out calmly before letting her fingers glide over a holographic keyboard, on which there were runes inscribed which Antheia failed to understand.

" _Initiating psynapse uplink to Origin System mainframe. Scanning warframes present."_ The unnerving feminine voice of the dojo echoed from the vast walls of the viewing gallery. It paused every few seconds, sometimes between words, which unnerved Antheia even further.

A bright light flitted rapidly up and down Umbra, then Ilene. After more momentary clicks and whirrs from the Beacon, that had started to emit a low growl from its dark matter core, it spoke again..

" _Nyx warframe detected. Nepthys warframe detected. Psychic symbiosis possible,"_ It stopped abruptly mid-sentence.

" _But not recommended."_ It finished.

The last sentence filled Antheia's heart with doubt, an uneasy pull that tempted her mind into veering back to the safe sanctuary of safety. But in life, as she perfectly knew, there had to be risks.

"Do it." She said with newfound confidence, catching the momentary turn of the head from the Ember and the two psychics sat at the golden spire.

" _Please confirm._ "

Antheia let out a breath and paused. Was it really worth it?

 _Of course._ She reassured herself.

"Do it." She said flatly.

" _Affirmative. Nephthys, prepare for rift jump_."

Ilene flexed her hands and grabbed onto the hand grips in front of her. The tower gave another rumble before a bright light shone from its peak. The light grew to the brightness of a small star, making Antheia cover her face and turn from the blinding, brilliant white orb that grew in size from atop the Beacon.

" _Rift jump imminent. The Lotus protects, Tenno._ " Was the last thing that sounded across the chamber before the lights filled her vision and the ground fell into blackness.


	13. Chapter 12

All she saw was white. There was no difference wherever she looked; everything was little more than a solid wall of white. Even if she closed her eyes, the light still shone through, as if her eyelids weren't there. And then, as soon as she had appeared in this dimension, she began to fall. The whiteness had begun to wash away from her eyes and the world started to blur past her, filling with colour once more. Air returned to her lungs, making her gasp, half in fear and half in shock from the adrenaline flooding through every fibre of her body. She tumbled down in freefall, her hands grabbing at thin air in futile search of grip onto anything to slow her descent

Pain coursed through her as she hit the ground. The force that kicked the air from her lungs was akin to a grenade exploding by her chest. Her warframe had absorbed some of the force, but the lights still blurred and flickered and her head still swam with a pounding ache in her right temple. Sharp waves of fresh pain shot through her as she placed a trembling hand on the ground in a vain attempt to ease her dizziness. Standing up on shaky legs, Antheia looked round to at least try and figure out where she was. The Ember seemed to have the same problem as she, though her dizziness seemed to have gotten worse, making her lean against a marble pillar for support. Ilene sat cross-legged on the floor, looking round intently at the high ceilings and archaic decorations that hung about the walls; she looked more confused and dazed than anything. Her sister, on the other hand, was stood calmly by a glass pillar, seemingly unfazed by the fall.

Antheia groggily studied the rest of her surroundings; she needed to take her mind off the racking headache that was tightening around her head every few moments.

The place she stood in which she stood reminded her of the churches of the Old Earth, although those faded memories were nothing compared to this. Tall archways of gold reached for the impossibly high ceilings, which were linked with strange, geometric patterns that twisted and intertwined into a web of somehow archaic artwork. Fine decorations stretched throughout the room and into others, which were closed off with revolving cylindrical doors. Antheia regarded the immaculate state of the place, but somehow the extravagant patterns and golden trims hid an aura of some definite antiquity; it was as if this 'room', and most likely this entire structure, had not remained untouched for millennia.

" _Where are we?"_ The words barely whispered past her lips, almost indiscernible, but her mind her mind was racing with questions

"To answer your question, Antheia," Umbra killed the silence, studying her fingernails without much interest as she spoke. "We are not where we are meant to be, thanks to my fool of a sister."

"Bite me! I'm not used to travelling long distances like that, so you shouldn't have expected anything spectacular." Ilene retorted.

"Hmmph."

Antheia suppressed a sigh as the two began their quarrels; they may have had their brain patterns altered, but sibling rivalry appeared to be something beyond the grasp of science.

"Ladies, this isn't the time for fighting. More pressing matters are at hand, like how in the world we're going to get to Ash." The Ember snapped.

"Any suggestions, then?" Silence answered her, before being abruptly interrupted by a low growl that crackled over what sounded like a radio from around the corner.

The four were instantly at their feet, guns and swords drawn without a moment's hesitation. The growl rose again from behind the wall, this time louder and stronger. It was joined by other warped, crackling noises that seemed to grow and grow into one huge primal beast, a single otherworldly entity. And still, it grew. Closer, and closer as Antheia gripped her Sybaris lever rifle with white knuckles, the all too familiar feeling of sinking dread and fear dragging her down as the growls grew louder. They started to echo off the walls, splitting through the air and burrowing themselves in her ears like parasites, freezing her on her own two feet out of insufferable terror. Her heart pounded in her ears. She felt the blood rushing through her head, making it swim and weaken her grip. Sweat dripped in cold beads down her forehead as the terrible sound still grew to an impossible volume. She tried to slow her increasingly rapid breathing, but her throat was dry and her breaths came raggedly. The anticipation of the threat was driving her superhuman senses to madness. She feared neither foe nor death, but fear itself was another matter entirely; it grasped her, it _possessed_ her with malevolence unlike anything else.

Then, as if to answer her silent prayers, the growls stopped. The silence that followed afterward was a sweet bliss, but only for a few seconds, before an entirely new horror stalked round the corner and into the striking light of the room. Antheia's breath immediately was strangled from her throat as her eyes fell upon this damnable atrocity before her. It took her several seconds to fully drink in its horrific, diseased features out of pure and utter shock. She did not fear death, but the _thing_ before her was far more terrible than death could ever be.

It seemed to be the decomposed, grotesque result of mutation upon the unlucky host of a Grineer marine, which was only clear because of a pallid mass of flesh bearing huge, cerulean pauldrons, along with the ruined helmet between them. Only one eye-lens remained, gleaming a bloody crimson. Staring out from where the second lens had once been there was an unremarkable, brown eye, cold, unblinking, and dead. The rest of the body was simply decayed tissue that hung loosely from the creature's bones and the revolting additional "limbs" that stuck out irregularly from the dead marine's body. It dragged its four biomechanical limbs across the ground with a sick grinding sound, which sent cold shivers creeping up Antheia's back with every step. Despite its necrotic appearance, Antheia knew at once that that dead brown eye could see her.

It stopped, silent, but for only a moment before it jerked the "head" straight at Antheia, its dead eye shooting a piercing gaze straight through her. It then jerked its head sideways, inspecting her closer, before rearing on its hind legs and letting out an inhuman, horrible screech. A shotgun's roar cracked through the air the next moment, the monstrosity flopping down on the ground as its body filled with holes. The still-smoking shell clattered down on the floor next to the Ember's clawed feet as she pumped the next shell into the chamber. The silence was kept for a short moment, leaving the four Tenno tense and nervous with anticipation. Then, as if called from the very same depths of whatever hell the beast had come from, a million voices cried out as one, creating a terrific cacophony of harsh static and warped wails. The grinding returned, this time being made by many instead of one. Sharp clicking filled the air to compliment the terrible din. Antheia's pounding heart beat like a drum, pounding out a beat for the terrible shrieks. She found herself paralyzed in fear, though she could have sworn that someone was calling to her amidst all this-

" _SARYN!"_ The Ember screamed over the ever-increasing drone of the approaching horde, shaking Saryn from her terror-induced trance.

"The Infested will be here any second now and we need to _move._ " The Ember said as she slung her shotgun round her back.

Antheia snapped awake and nodded, slotting the Sybaris into the sheath on her back and turning to run after her squad mates. After they ran several corners and through a few revolving cylinders, they arrived at what seemed to be a grand hall. A long table stretched out from one end of the room to the other, encircled with high-backed chairs and all illuminated by small orbs of glowing energy along the sides.

" _It's beautiful…_ " Antheia breathed as she slowed to a jog.

Unsurprisingly, the Ember immediately put a halt to her momentary admiration and grabbed her attention with a curt " _Ahem._ " She looked round one last time before following the rest of her squad, who were hastily making their way up the marble staircase.

The world flung her forward as a sharp hiss, a great fist of air and an almighty crash erupted from behind her. Antheia rolled over, her Viper pistol drawn to face her attacker. In front of her stood what looked like a corrupted Corpus crewman, glowing fluorescent, sickly green and spewing forth diseased clouds of yellow gas. She shrieked and planted her stiletto into its torso, sending immense pressure onto a tiny point and making it fly back down to the depths below, where it joined the writhing mass of its own kind. Antheia ascended the staircase with utmost urgency to join her squad, who had now taken up firing positions along the banisters and behind a swirling energy barrier. The Zauber energy rifle in Ilene's hands awoke, lilac smoke trailing from its ribs and a small white sun growing rapidly at its mouth. Wild energy crackled around the spinning electromagnetic coils at its back, accompanied by a slow, droning whine. It belched the orb at the oncoming horde, streaking down the staircase in moments and passing through the mass of dead flesh without hindrance, singing its lethal song as it cauterized the very wounds it made.

But even with the supporting fire and the fury of her own shredding apart wave after wave of the approaching monstrosities, they advanced, if not in literal leaps and bounds. Antheia glanced back towards the door behind her, and tapped along the communications link for confirmation.

With what sounded like disappointment and an unerring calm, Umbra sighed over the voice-link as she slammed another magazine home.

"We can't outrun them. They use the vents and power tubes to get around, so trying to run out there is useless."

"But we can't just stay here!" exclaimed Antheia.

"Calm down, ladies, I've got it under control." The Ember rose from her position, leaving her shotgun to clatter to the floor.

"This place looks nice and all, but you what they say..." Her eyes lit up as a huge flame burst from her hand, trembling with furious power.

"Ashes to ashes…" She giggled.

"Wait, what are you-"Ilene turned to the Ember, wide-eyed.

" _Dust to dust._ " Were the last words that Antheia heard over the cacophony before the Ember's hand flashed white and the world was consumed by fire.

It took several seconds for the white flash to slowly fade from Antheia's vision, but the blistering heat that spread itself across her body made it known in moments. The warframe AI instantly engaged the helmet locks and the fire retardant armour as the roaring flames grew in number and size, though no amount of protection would guard her against the scorching heat. As the world warped and twisted round her from the hot fury of the fire, she tried to look for any chance to get away, for any place that the flames would not be able to touch her.

Everything burned. The flames consumed everything, an intractable beast that twisted and turned into every small fissure, purging everything in its path and reducing it to cinders. The Infested themselves had no safety from the fire; they burned just the same as the others. But what Antheia came to realize, and it scared her still whenever her mind brought her back to that moment, was that they still ran, uncaring for the horrendous damage being done to their flesh; as long as they reached their target, it seemed that casualties were redundant.

Something grabbed her. An arm, with patterns up and down that she had not seen before, ones that were very geometric and straight, ones that seemed to have no start or end, just a mass of… circuitry. The arm pulsed light blue before fading to black once more. Somewhere in the structure an ominous groan rumbled through the floor, growling louder than the burning horde of Infested that had, to some relief, slowed their advance to shuffling and pained groans as the flames began to eat into their remnants of vital organs and letting them drop, one by one, to the floor.

The sick crackling of the flames had died down, but the heat still bled through the air all the same. The arm gave another pull on the mass of her warframe surrounding her collar, jerking her into the canopy of a darkened overhang. Her savior stepped out in front of her and hastily hurried towards the rest of the squad, who were doing their best to shield themselves from the explosions and angry flames that licked their tongues closer every second. One by one, they were dragged by the scruffs of their collars into the overhang before the doors hissed shut and Antheia felt the circular floor they lay on rising, away from the flames and the Infested which they consumed.

The Ember was on her feet at once with her heavy-caliber Lex pistol drawn, aimed with no hesitation at the figure's face.

"Identify yourself, stranger." She growled through ragged, smoke filled breaths.

The mysterious warframe-bearer turned to the Ember, unflinching at the menacing mouth of a pistol being shoved in his face. Its helmet, which had a tinted black visor remarkably reminiscent to that of a Mag's flickered on, sending small light-blue pulses of light across the front and illuminating a small patchwork of intertwining glowing circuitry. Its eyes could barely be seen behind the tinted front of the helmet, but the more attentive eye could see that they had crinkled up with an obscured, crooked smile.

The colorful display on the visor faded abruptly and immediately opened down the middle of the stranger's face, accompanied by a tiny whirr. The man, who looked to be about Antheia's age, stuck out a gloved hand towards the Ember, who looked even more ready to fire at this point.

"Tosh. Pleased to meet you." He said with a fetching smirk.


	14. Chapter 13

"Is that supposed to mean something?" The Ember snapped.

"Awfully rude, considering I just saved your life, especially because of _your_ incompetence, little Miss Firecracker." He pretended to take offence, but, for some reason, Antheia could never understand was how he maintained his talkative mood with a huge pistol being pointed at his forehead, especially with an irritated Ember on the trigger.

"Anyway, let's put this behind us." Tosh exhaled, delicately placing a finger on the top of the barrel of the Lex and slowly lowering so it didn't go anywhere near his face, at least. "I am Prelate Tosh of the Coiled Viper wing, Clan of Seven Willows.

The Ember stared him straight in his jade eyes for another moment before she, with visible doubt, shoved the gun back into the holster on her hip.

"Alright, Tosh, I'll believe you, but I have a couple of questions to ask you."

"Fire away." He smiled with relief.

"Firstly, why are you here? Secondly, where exactly are we?"

"I can answer the first part, but the second part is going to have to take a bit of explanation."

"Answer what you can."

The doors slid open with barely a whisper as the platform came to a slow, graceful stop. It was so still here, Antheia noticed; it was hard to believe that they had just come from such a hellish nightmare not two minutes ago. He led them out, being sure to stay at the front, for he did not fancy causing any suspicion among someone like the Ember, who watched him with narrowed eyes. They followed him round a corner, listening intently for his explanation.

"Initially, there were four of us here. Standard Tier Five Tower investigation, the only difference was that all the warframes here were tests; they wanted to gauge how well they did in the field as compared to simple drawing-board stuff. It was going fine until the Tower reactor decided to malfunction, and the purification systems keeping the Infestation from running rampant malfunctioned. We managed to escape to a safer place on the upper floors, but the Infested managed to find us anyway. This place is huge, so relocation wasn't a problem. The problem was that we couldn't get out, since the power to the Beacon was overloaded during the partial meltdown."

"What warframes are you talking about?" Umbra suddenly asked.

Tosh's face saddened, losing its previous annoying tactlessness as he stared blankly forward. "It was a Nephthys, like you there," he gestured with a quick flick of his finger in Ilene's direction, "a Bastet, an Oculus and me on the mission. The Bastet was suffocated by a Corrupter a few solar cycles back and the Nephthys died after trying to teleport out without the help of a Beacon."

"I'm sorry for that, Tosh." Ilene apologized with an empathy that Antheia long hadn't heard; she must have known how her fellow sisters fared under such a horrible death, for her expression was one of wrenching sorrow and… loss.

"You mentioned an Oculus?" Antheia softly broke the grievous silence, no less curious than any of the others.

"He is alive. But recently, he's been having- well, how should I put it… visions. You see, his eyesight was far extended past anything thought possible before with his warframe. He can see through the walls, detect thermal signatures, and see anything past when we would be blind. His vision has gotten so advanced that he can detect the muscle movements of attacks before you even make them. Incredible."

"I don't understand; what visions?"

"He's gone slightly- okay, I won't say slightly; he's gone completely insane. Apparently even when he takes off the warframe he sees things, hallucinations. Things start appearing out of nowhere for him; he can't even look at _himself_ without screaming. All I can do is protect him from the Infested, but he's too far gone to do anything useful now."

Another moment of recollection passed before Tosh seemed to snap back to reality. He shook his head rapidly before swiping his hand over a glass panel, making the pair of doors in front of them slide open their silver jaws to reveal a nearly completely pitch-black room with only an array of computer monitors to call light.

Antheia was surprised at how spacious the room actually made itself to be when the four stepped in, led by Tosh, who sank into an opulent leather armchair in front of the screens. He plugged a fat cable into a small port on the back of his warframe's neck, which clicked and whirred randomly for several moments before he froze stiff. His eyes darted across the screens in front of him, the screens themselves turning into a flickering display of runes and endless streams of numbers.

His eyes snapped forward and his spine arched at a horrible angle before he slumped onto the table. Antheia gasped and rushed forward to help him, but his twitching hand rose to stop her.

"I'm… fine. It does that sometimes, although that time was a bit more painful, I think." said Tosh wearily, somehow cracking a dry smile as he sat up. Antheia looked to her fellow Tenno, but they shared the same indifferent look, except maybe for the Ember, who looked ready to draw her Lex at her slightest suspicion.

Tosh's fingers flew over the keys, the screens responding with their own small show as they flew through the Origin System and into the black Void, then zooming out and soaring past floating golden spires. Tosh's fingers stopped abruptly in the middle of their dance, making the screens stop at the view of a golden spire. It was identical to the others before and after it, except for one definite feature: no shining light glowed from its peak, no lighthouse to guide lost ships home.

"To answer your second question, Ember, this is where we are. A Tier Five Tower located in a place far from where you and I come from. I haven't even been round the entire place yet; it's simply too big. This Tower has something about it, though, I must warn you. It does things to warframe powers, things that it shouldn't. It probably explains why you nearly blew up half the place back there." Tosh explained as he spun round in his chair.

"That doesn't-"

"Ah-ah, that's it. You have your answers. Now I must bid you a question, Miss Firecracker." He jeered, wagging his finger.

"Don't call me that." She replied coldly.

"Who are you, exactly?" He ignored her. "I should at least _know_ who I'm talking to before I expose _all_ my secrets."

Antheia spoke up first.

"I am the Saryn, but you may call me Antheia, Tosh."

"You'll call me Nyx. That's Ilene." Umbra continued with the introductions, nodding over towards the Nephthys, who had maintained a nervous silence until now.

"Hi." Was all she said, with a feeble wave.

"Excellent. I already knew who all of you were, but, as you must agree, there needs to be trust before we are to help one another, no?"

"Well, now I have to ask. How did you know?" Umbra huffed.

"I've told you that the warframes sent here were prototypes, correct? This," he gestured to the device on the back of his neck, "is a Nexus control port. Used only in the Nimda warframe."

"Nimda?"

"Yes, you can hear correctly, well done." He answered, as if to praise her, "I am proud to call myself the bearer of the first Nimda warframe."

"What's so special about you, then?" Umbra sneered back at him.

"The first 'non-combat' warframe in the field. Well, I would say 'non- _direct_ combat', anyway; the frame was developed for the use of network breaching, file stealing, sabotage and the like. That might explain how I knew who you were, to answer your question; not even the Lotus' warframe systems can lock me out." Tosh bragged, grinning smugly.

"Are we supposed to be impressed?" She crossed her arms, anything but impressed.

"No, but you will when you see what sorts of wonderful things this place can do. You name it: turret overrides, airlocks, lasers, sentry guards, electrical discharges, power outages…" He continued his monologue, unfazed, as he recounted his list with his fingers.

"Ember, I hate to ask," Umbra's discontented voice sounded over the voice-link, "but how is this man going to help us, exactly?"

"I don't know, let's see if he can." For the first time in a while, the Ember seemed unsure.

"Alright, Tosh, here's the situation we're in:" She placed a hand in front of him on the desk, grabbing his drifting attention. "Our friend was cast out to the Void to die, but we have reason to believe that he is still alive. Ilene tried to get us to him, but we ended up here."

"Of course you would." Tosh added as he swiveled back round to face the screens, which now had begun to show some sort of schematics for the top portion of the Tower.

"What do you mean?" The Ember seemed more uneasy now.

"Just because the reactor was breached doesn't mean the Beacon hasn't stopped _working_ , it just doesn't work the way it should. The Beacon seems to attract any travelling warframes and ships that come past; it's like a graveyard at the upper decks."

He let the silence hang for a moment.

"There have been many before you here; you seem to be the first ones to actually find us. The rest make up the Infested you saw earlier."

 _Those were once… Tenno?_ Antheia would have gasped if the horror that gripped her had allowed it.

"By 'come past' you mean that we were near to his location before we came here?" The Ember asked before he trailed off again.

"By a few thousand miles, but yes, you were."

"Then how would we find him?"

"Well, if it was close enough, I could try and reach out and steer the ship he was on into the hangar, but there's no guarantee that it would work." He shrugged.

"Just tell us, is there a chance?" Umbra pleaded, placing a hand on the shoulder of the chair and looking him straight in the eyes.

"Slim, but present." He replied, simply.

"Will you?"

"I guess I kind of have to now, don't I? My, my, this is certainly interesting..." He began his monologue once more, fingers tapping lightly over the holographic keys, making a gridded display coming up on the screen.

A small circle flitted about the monitor, expanding and contracting round various, tiny objects that floated aimlessly about the Void. The circle fixed suddenly onto a black, slim object with a small speck of green pulsating from the end. It seemed to move faster, much faster than the rocks and asteroids that flew about, grabbing the rare attention of Tosh, who leaned in and eyed the object with sudden interest. He drew his finger across the screen and lightly tapped the, receiving a small blip and a closer view at what it was. It appeared to be a ship with a wide body and a blade-like front, trailing a pale green fire from its engines. No lights shone from its windows, and its course seemed to have no real direction, just endless flight through nothingness.

Tosh immediately began to punch in instructions to the console, which responded in the same, frantic manner with the same shower of glyphs that raced around the screen. His fingers began to dance once more, playing softly across the holographic keys with swift, accurate strokes. His helmet closed over the front and lit up with minor pulses of blue light as he did his skilful work, almost dancing to the tune of his fingers. The screens, now completely clouded over, began to flash as suddenly Tosh froze stiff, leaving only his fingers in racking, erratic spasms. Antheia could only watch with silent pity as he started to send himself deeper into the mainframe.

But, as hard as it was to avert her eyes from the Nimda in front of her, Antheia could spot the ship slowly turning its bow toward the golden spire; shaking and trembling, but definitely turning. The ship seemed to come alive, fighting against its new master with small shakes and shivers. The carbon-black engines roared against Tosh's influence, but he kept his focus and pulled harder. The engine buckled and strained against his will as he pulled the ship in closer, but it seemed to be giving up and being taken over by some other force. It started to ease its spasms and slowly began to gain speed directly to where…

" _It's going straight for us."_ Antheia gasped with new, horrible realization.

The others seemed to notice this as well; they all wore the same, confused, hopeless expressions on their faces. The ship sped faster towards their location, not shaking or flinching from its new path. Tosh, who now seemingly had lost control, slumped forward in his chair.

"I don't think we have the time to wait around; it's heading right for the Tower!" Ilene exclaimed, snapping the rest of the Tenno out of their trance.

"We don't have time to run, either." The Ember remarked with a strange absence of any worry or fear, pointing at the screen with a clawed finger. On the monitor it showed the ship, a green streak against the black canvas of space, speeding on in its unfaltering flight.

"Then what can we do?!" Ilene looked back to the Ember, worry in her eyes and panic in her voice.

"I'll handle this." Umbra began, speaking calmly and assuredly to quell her sisters rising hysteria.

"Oh, and what can you d-" Ilene began to make a snide reply, but a sudden pale green wave of energy rushed from Umbra's finger to hush her.

The small beeps and whirrs from the monitors and the rumbles from the belly of the Tower now subsided and came as muffled noise in the background. No one said a word as Umbra pushed her hands outward, casting a large bubble out around the five Tenno that rippled with energy every few seconds. Antheia turned her head in surprise, looking out to nothing but a hazy, frosted image of the golden archways and dazzling white lights outside.

Antheia had barely opened her mouth before she was met with a low rumble and then an almighty boom from above her head. A sudden shockwave rippled down through the Tower to meet them, throwing the monitors off the desk and causing several of the orbs outside to die and break into small showers of glass. The Tenno, however, felt next to nothing, save for a small, intangible sensation that pressed upon their skulls. Umbra, however, seemed to feel the full force of the explosion, if not more, for the bubble had dissipated and she had dropped to the ground, blood trickling from her nose and her skin deathly pale. Her sister rushed to her aid while Antheia saw to Tosh. Opening up the helmet, she pressed two fingers to the side of his neck.

She felt a pulse; a faint one, but a pulse nonetheless. She closed his helmet back over and walked out into the half-destroyed hall, a distraught Ilene and her barely recovered sister following behind. The Ember seemed to still have ill opinion of Tosh, even when he was unconscious, so she decided against leaving him alone and stayed behind.

"Come on, Ash may be injured." Ilene said worriedly before splitting apart a nearby wall with her hands, creating a portal just big enough for them to walk through.

Antheia stepped through with some hesitation, but felt relief when she stepped onto solid marble once more. However, as she looked around, she slowly drank in the full destruction that the ship had left behind. Black scorch marks streaked across the walls. Glittering razor-sharp glass carpeted the floor and several wooden desks were splintered and broken into uneven pieces, as if a beast of fire had charged through and rended everything to woodchips and cinders. Antheia made care to switch on the gas filtration systems in her helmet, for the acrid smoke that clung to the ceiling and walls with black claws had made itself known within seconds, making her cough and splutter on its bitter taste in her mouth.

She drew her rifle from its holster and led the way round a corner, following the origin of the smoke and the concentration of the heat. After passing through another ruined archway with destroyed glass and charred wood, they found what they were looking for.

The helm of the ship, twisted and burned through to the frame, protruded at an ugly angle through the wall of the Tower, already falling further apart from the weakness in its melted joints. Antheia rushed towards the emergency airlock, which was held ajar by a piece of broken frame. She gripped the edge of the door and gave a sharp pull, to which it responded with a slow groan and then a whine, before flying open and knocking Antheia slightly off balance. She entered the craft and turned into the helm, where the only thing that was left seemed to be what used to be an armchair and half-melted computer consoles. She turned the other way and ran past the two sisters, taking the next right and entering a vast chamber with blackened domed walls and several weapons scattered across its splintered oaken floor. Next to the shattered viewing window lay a body, with what looked like a blood-caked blade sticking out from its chest, and next to that was…

" _Ash!_ "


	15. Chapter 14

He had never felt so cold. Not ever in his rare, dreamless nights or when unconsciousness dragged him under had he felt a feeling so great, one that gripped his very heart with an unrelenting chill. He seemed to have regained some sort of sense back to his body after waking up, but waking up from _what_? His eyes saw nothing, his ears picked up naught but the slow, shallow pulse of his heart and he didn't seem to be able to touch, let alone feel. His dead mind ran in circles as it tried to make seems of where he was, or if he was even _alive_. He didn't seem to quite belong to anything, rather just floating in a pitch-black sea of nothingness that was neither death nor life; a horrible, eternal limbo from which nothing returned.

But, as he lay in this other realm, he started to notice something. Tiny, barely perceptible distortions, ones that didn't quite fit with the eerie perfect silence of the blackness, poked and stabbed at the invisible walls in which he was imprisoned, creating small ripples in an otherwise still pool. These glitches grew more common, slowly adding in flashes of grey or white, and then fading into subtle then more defined shades of red, orange and yellow. Deep rumbles began to thresh upon his detached frame, rising through the dead air and shaking the walls. His world began to tremble violently, flashes of colour beginning to flit across his vision in a vibrant yet chaotic display. The blackness containing him started to crack, fissures appeared all over, widening and splitting before completely breaking open, shattering this realm into showers of black glass and giving way to a faded white. Blurred shapes, seemingly human-shaped, swam hurriedly around his vision, making him sick from dizziness.

He _felt._ His mind reeled as it came to this realization, but he felt a strange relief come over him as it did, a relief to be _alive_. The shapes, although still restless and blurry behind his frosted vision, seemed to settle at last, save for two ominous objects that slowly moved for the sides of his head and rested there with a small tingling sensation. They stayed there for several tense moments, before they jolted and Ash felt the most intense pain he had ever felt in the hundreds of damned years of his life.

Although lasting only a few seconds, it was enough to make him thrash and spasm violently, screaming and crying out as the agony drove through his body. It flowed through him slowly and painfully, as if his very blood had been replaced by white-hot metal and his skin had been set alight. His screams, now hoarse and broken from his torture, were choked from his throat as he struggled to breathe; so great and so horrible was his torment.

Harsh, bright light streamed through as he slowly opened his eyes. The bleak, whitewashed walls mixed with bloodied warframes in front of him, painting a bleak display of dark crimson, bleached white and sullen grey. His head swam and lolled to one side, smacking into the wall with a thud. He heard voices, indiscernible in their worried tone, as well as what he now saw as fingers propping his head back up straight. Two more hazy figures came in from the backdrop, one with slashes of fiery red and orange up and down its frame, with the other, relatively weak-looking in comparison, following behind drowsily.

The taller of the pair came forth and kneeled by his side, muttering unintelligible words to itself and shaking its head. It raised a clawed hand and struck him on the side of the face, leaving a sharp sting that faded after a few moments, but after looking up, he noticed that his eyes saw clearly once more.

Three females in their own distinguished warframes kneeled next to him, carefully tending to the grievous damage done to his frame and the even worse damage to his body. The one with the arch on its helmet curved backward picked apart bone fractures with strong but cautious determination, the younger looking warframe-bearer with soft chestnut hair tied into a neat plait singed together the adamite scales and the starkly, almost impossibly beautiful Tenno with cascading golden hair and deep, amaranthine eyes hastily searched round his torso and head for injuries.

"It's good to have you back, Ash." The one with the clawed hands smirked, somehow sounding like she was joking. He stared at her, detached, trying to figure out some sort of sense as to where he was. He felt a distinct familiarity towards the Tenno around him, but he couldn't quite touch on it.

"Who... are you?" Ash slurred as he began to wake up.

"I know you know who I am, Ash, I'm certainly not _that_ stupid. Now, how are you feeling?" She smiled with genuine warmth. The Tenno working on his leg, however, began to grow an expression of concern.

"I don't know... who you are. Where am I? What did you do to me?" Ash's voice lost its slurred tone. He stood up.

"Hold on _..._ " The Nyx stopped suddenly, dropping her bloodied hands into her lap and looking up worriedly at him.

"Come on, Ash, this isn't funny."

"What?! I'm not trying to-"

" _Wait._ " The hall fell silent. All eyes turned on the rising Nyx, even Ash's.

"Are you Tenno?"

"Yes."

"Do you know where you are?"

"No."

"Do you know who I am?"

"I thought I made that clear, but once again, no."

"Where is your home?"

 _Home._

The word flashed across his mind, but left a small cut in his blackened memory, exposing something terrible underneath. He could see a city set ablaze, lighting up a night sky and sending plumes of acrid black smoke into the air. All around him people fled in fear, some stopping to collect pictures, items of value, memories. Some simply stopped in their hurried tracks and watched in utter horror, eyes red from crying, the black smoke, or both. No one seemed to make any effort to put the actual fires out, but to run away from something much greater in threat. He could hear terrified screams, the rattles of gunfire and the sick crackling of fire eating through flesh. The metallic smell of blood filled his nostrils, making him double over and lean against the masonry for support. The last thing he saw was a figure at the end of the street on which he stood, one who, under the light of the roaring and raging flames, wore a blood-curdling smile. The world disintegrated almost immediately afterward, interrupted by the feeling of a hand holding onto his shoulder. He looked to his right, in a daze, seeing the Saryn look with nothing but worry on her face.

The sick parasite of terror that burrowed inside him before disappeared as he set his wide-eyed gaze upon her, being replaced by the feral savage beast that was fury. It tore at his walls of common sense with claws of fiery anger, making his blood seethe and his mind go blank. His soul seemed to take flight from his body, being replaced by something indescribable as he grabbed her by the throat. A twisted sense of satisfaction found him as he felt the twitches of her fragile neck, the desperate attempts for air. He smiled viciously on the outside, yet inside he knew himself no longer.

Pain shot through his right side, throwing him to the floor and releasing the Saryn from his grip. He stared, eyes wide, at the vicious orange flame that was eating into his armour and had already started to singe his skin. He gritted his teeth and batted at the flame until it finally died, but it had left its mark. Red, blistered skin covered his entire right side, making even the slightest touch excruciating. Ash looked up with nothing but the deepest, most hateful fury he had ever felt, straight into the eyes of the Ember.

He then looked round to the Nyx, the Saryn, and the two strange ones next to them. The destructive malevolence that possessed him seemed to be quenched for the moment, blocked out only by the blinding pain in the side of his gut. He glared at the Saryn in particular, who wore nothing but hurt on her face. Ash felt nothing in return. He drew a ragged breath, and spoke, his voice quivering and trembling:

"I don't know who any of you are, nor do I wish to meet you again. I don't know how I ended up here, but I'm going to find answers. And if one of you follows me, I will not hesitate to slice you open and let your blood paint the walls red."

He stumbled through revolving door and out onto the other side, wincing with every step.

"Ash, how can you just leave us? Don't we mean anything to you now?"

"No, you don't, and my name is not _Ash_." He spat the name with particular revulsion.

"It's Orion."

The door shut.


	16. Chapter 15

The pain had eased, but the anger had not retreated an inch. It still burned, simmering and seething inside him as his mind cycled through horrible, hate-filled thoughts on how to kill _them._ But amidst this bloody sea of malevolent delusions was a single, solitary question that he could not rid from his mind.

 _So, what stopped you?_

Orion jumped. He looked round wildly, finding nothing.

 _Ash?_

It was _inside_ his head. He breathed in and out to calm himself, before answering.

"Who are you?"

 _Do you really not know?_

"No. Why are you inside my head?"

 _I fear my suspicions have proven true._

"What suspicions?"

 _You wouldn't know. What is important is that my name is Dust – the sword strapped to your leg - and you are not yourself at the moment._

Orion looked to his thigh, and indeed the sword glowed anew and trailed a thin, wispy smoke as he walked.

"Well, Dust, would you mind telling me why I'm suddenly recognised by everyone I don't know?"

 _I could, but telling you would prove too much for your mind in its current state. I will tell you when I feel that you've returned to your normal self._

"My normal self? What are you talking about? What's going on here?!"

Orion shouted into the silent air, receiving no answer, before breathing out and running his bloodied hand through his hair.

"Shit, maybe I am going crazy."

The warframe meant to offer him protection against all but the worst blizzards, but it offered no protection against the cold feeling of dread that came over him. He felt the hairs on his back and arms rise as he breathed in a smell entirely different. It was no longer the unnaturally pure smell like before, but a strange combination of metal and wet earth. He stopped before a corner, and looked down from where he came. Darkness shrouded the hallway.

Sighing, Orion slumped into the wall and sat down slowly. He brought up a built-in map of his immediate area to show him at least some hint of where he was. All it showed him was more winding corridors and staircases. Air hissed through his teeth as he cursed. He closed his eyes and let his head rest on the cold marble wall.

 _What stopped me?_

The question still rung like an iron bell in his head. It blocked out any other thoughts, apart from that one, damned toiled over the memory with his mind, trying to pick apart anything he might have missed. But it all ended the same: that sadistic, blood-curdling smile before everything went black. He sighed again.

 _Well, I won't find any answers sitting here,_ he thought.

A small click sounded from above him, breaking the shallow silence. Orion looked up in half-interest, but what made him freeze was the lone, snow-white eye that stared back at him.

His heart seemed to explode as he jumped up, adrenaline pulsing hard through his body and igniting his muscles into action. His arm on his good side instantly went to Dust, the other quickly reaching for the Kunai strapped to his thigh. The eye moved, but just a little. Studying. Planning. Orion could vaguely see the rest of the figure behind the eye, which had cocked its head slightly in curiosity.

The foul-smelling air hung between them before the _thing_ spoke.

"Interesting. An Ash warframe. Don't see many of you around anymore."

Orion kept his silence under the helmet.

"What's that you have? A Pangolin Sword?" The figure seemed to know enough about the Tenno, and he spoke the Common Tongue. Orion looked at him carefully before speaking evenly but firmly.

"How do you know about the Tenno? State your name."

"Getting all official, are we? I'll bite. Oculus. That's my name. I am Tenno, if you haven't guessed."

He snorted.

"Why are you here? What warframe do you carry?"

"Hold on a second, too many questions at once."

 _Why am I wasting time with this fool?_

"So many questions, so little time to answer them!" He chuckled. "Never mind. There isn't much to do anyway. All empty space and time. Oh, and those creatures you see sometimes." The stranger continued his monologue.

"Stop fooling around. Why are you here?" Orion's voice was returning to its cold, raspy tone; he was losing his patience.

"Anyway, as I was saying, I'm Oculus. I've got this funny warframe, but see here, it's special. None other like it. I got sent here to see how I would do. Things didn't go as planned. People died. Bad things happened."

"What happened?" Orion demanded.

"The kitty died, the braniac too. Then there's that weird guy, Tosh. That's it. He's still alive. Have you seen him around lately?"

"Tosh?"

"Tosh. Grey warframe. Dodgy eyes." The Oculus looked quizzically at Orion.

"I don-", Orion began.

The Oculus chuckled rather too loudly to himself.

"Trick question. Of course you don't! I saw him with those ladies about an hour ago. There was a blonde one, real pretty. Antheia, I think her name was.

Orion's grip softened. His eyes narrowed to slits.

"How do know she's here?

The Oculus scowled and buried his face in his hands. "Take a clue, genius. My name is Oculus. I have an eye in the middle of my helmet. This means that I can _see_ things. Very, very far. And I can also see a lot more things than you can. A _lot_ more."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"You're being awfully rude, you know? Didn't your mother teach you any manners?"

Orion gritted his teeth and exhaled through his flaring nostrils.

"You know _nothing_."

"Do I, now?"

"I advise you leave me alone, before you regret your arrogance."

"Sticks and stones, my friend."

Orion held his blade for another moment before smirking and letting his arms fall. He simply looked away, and walked on. This fool was insane.

"I wouldn't be so hasty, if I were you." Orion could practically see the condescending wag of the finger behind him.

"And why would that be?" He asked with a smile, not breaking his stride.

"I may be in possession of something very important to you."

"Which is?"

"This."

The Oculus then moved - no, moving was not fast enough – _blinked_ in front of him, dangling a long object from his fingertips. Orion couldn't make out what it was, but a brief spark from the tip of the object lit up the whole thing, and as it flashed, so did a small glimpse in Orion's mind.

 _My Nikana._

His senses seemed to defy him for a few moments; his ears picked up no sound, his eyes saw no colour, his hands could not feel the cold of his sword. But, to his horror, they all came back to him, with something infinitely worse in waiting.

He was back. The heat of hellish fire, the bitter smell of the nebulous clouds of ash that mixed with the sick stench of burning flesh, the terrible sight of total, bloody carnage to the furthest reaches of his vision. Everything rushed back as one, hitting Orion with unrelenting force. He wretched and coughed as smoke entered his lungs, making breathing nearly impossible. He stumbled through on weak legs, waving his hands franticly through the scorching air to dispel the black haze blocking his path. Tears streaked down his cheeks from blood-red eyes as his hands fell to his sides. He felt the strength drain from his legs as his head became heavier, and heavier, until he could scarcely keep himself upright, let alone walk. His ankles gave, letting him fall to the razed, smoke-blackened earth and onto his hands and knees. Orion's chest gave a pained heave, perhaps his last, before he fell to the ground. His eyes shut.

A pair of hands, large and unnaturally strong, scooped him up from the floor by his armpits and, as if he were nothing but a slab of meat, slung him over a broad shoulder. He stirred and tried to breathe, but he only got a few sips of precious oxygen before the smoke made him cough it all out again.

Orion was made to feel every painful jab into his ribs as he felt whoever was carrying him walk with long, heavy strides. After a minute or so, he felt the air get clearer and clearer as they moved, allowing the sweet, refreshing taste of oxygen to tingle his burned tongue.

Orion felt his back touch a wall as he was set down with gentle hands. His eyelids seemed to weigh a ton as he tried to open his eyes, never giving and driving him into blindness again. Only after a few moments could he open his eyes enough for them to focus on the scene around him.

It was not any better than the scene beforehand, but the deadly ash cloud was gone, and Orion could see once again.

 _Okay. I'm not going to die._

"I've found Orion."

He looked up. A gaunt man, clad in an Ash warframe like his, looked down at him. He showed no emotion in his eyes, a shadowy grey, but below that burned something brighter, a vengeful spirit that smouldered in a great suit of adamite armour. A large, unmistakable sword, a fierce dragon's head crowned at the hilt, was slung by a worn leather belt at his hip.

 _My Nikana._

The Tenno knelt down to his level. He looked straight at Orion with a gaze that was moist with longing, or even sorrow.

"Orion." He began. Orion parted his dry lips, but the man continued.

"Don't speak. I need you to listen to me, more than you ever have. We will not survive this. I will not survive this. They are simply too strong."

He paused, holding his gaze. Orion dared not speak.

"However, that does not mean we won't fight."

"I want to-"

"It does not matter what you want, Orion. I am telling you, I am _ordering_ you, to stay here. You are in no condition to fight right now, so try and save your strength."

An explosion sounded off near, followed by an agonised scream that eventually blended into the hellish cacophony outside.

"I fear this is goodbye. I don't have much need for this anymore, and I believe you are ready. Take this sword. I trust you will take good care of it?"

The Tenno unstrapped the Nikana on his thigh and placed it on Orion's lap. He looked at Orion for another moment before burrowing his face in his shoulder, allowing his grief to gush out in muffled sobs. Orion looked down at the Tenno who had embraced him, and felt that same feeling of distant, unexplainable familiarity. It was in that moment, when the world was burning and it was just the two of them in the centre of it all, in which everything stilled.

Slivers of flame stopped their deadly dance in mid-air. Embers and sparks froze in flight, like tiny birds in the background of one of the many paintings Orion had often gazed yearningly for hours. A piece of a wooden support was suspended mere feet of the ground outside, set alight by the wild fires. Orion looked down at the lone Tenno that had his arms locked around him with such determination, such strength, that it seemed like he would never let go.

The support hit the floor. The shrill cries from outside, the heat, the unrelenting heat, rushed back to him. He nearly passed out. The unnamed Tenno had gotten up, drawing an ornate revolver from his hip straps with his right hand and unsheathing a Glaive with his left. It was only when the Tenno gave one final, tearful glance into Orion's shadowy grey eyes that the truth finally dawned. The one, single word, the one that hit him like a wall of bricks and sent his mind spiralling back into reality:

 _Father._


	17. Chapter 16

You could almost drown in the near-silence. Not a word was said. The air rested, and even the ever-present drone of the engines seemed to quiet. Tosh tapped his hand on the floor incessantly, gazing into the marble of the pillars, lost in it. The Ember's claws scraped faintly across the floor as she paced this way and that. Ilene rested her delicate head on her sister's shoulder, staring blankly forth. Umbra's pale face was hidden behind a Nyx helmet, but under it her eyes were moist with nothing less than what felt like betrayal.

No one dared bother the Saryn, who was stood, leaning against the wall and biting at her scarlet nails. Her expression was hollow, emotionless, a husk of the vibrant, young woman that they had known not long before. Her cheeks were bleached ivory white, but her eyes were surrounded by swollen, angry red. Her pupils seemed to swallow the empty air. The amaranth colour that shone in her irises before was now a smouldering crimson, burning into whoever held their gaze with hers. She herself, much to her surprise, felt next to nothing.

The scene replayed itself in her head, again, and again. Her thoughts led her nowhere but to the gut-wrenching sight of Ash, sword in hand, staggering out of the room. What shocked her still was that she did not follow him. He... he tried to _kill_ her. She remembered the lost look in his eyes as he came to. There was nothing left of the Ash she knew. Something had changed him.

 _It's not him._ She repeated to herself. _It's not him._

She heard the scraping come to a stop. The Ember looked to her, somewhat uneasy. Antheia didn't look back.

"Well?" was the demanding question, spoken from behind the fiery helmet. The others looked up, ears pricked.

"What now?"

"We leave this place." She stated, simply.

The Ember stared back in disbelief.

"What about Ash? Isn't that what we came for?"

"He's gone." Her voice cut like the Fang she spun in between her deft fingers.

"No, he's not!" Ilene jumped up, exclaiming loudly and even grabbing the curious attention of Antheia. Her sister looked up with worry in her eyes.

"What do you think we've come all the way here for? Haven't you forgotten what he's done for you, or for _me_ , for that matter? Don't you appreciate _anything_?!" Anger and hurt fuelled the wave of psychic energy that flew from her hand, reaching Antheia and scattering a few golden strands of hair across her face. She stared at the ground, ears burning with shame.

"We've come to finish this. He comes home with us, alive or... or dead." Her face crumpled when she finished and she broke down, rejoining her sister, who embraced her with gentle arms.

"She should never have come." Regret lined the Ember's voice, but Antheia felt it was an accusation.

She stayed her tongue; they needed to set aside their quarrels for now. Ilene was right. How _could_ she leave him? He was not the best to deal with, at times, but he was still her brother in battle, and she his sister. The Tenno never left another alone. Loneliness was a familiar enemy, and she knew all too well the pain and anguish it brought in its stride.

"I'm sorry, Ilene. I was wrong. I know he was your teacher, and a bond between sensei and student is not a weak one. We'll find him."

Antheia spoke the words with the utmost tenderness. The past few hours had left her a wreck. She'd only just been cleared.

Antheia almost felt like the visitor from all those years ago, giving noting but kind words of consolation and hugs filled with rose-scented hair. It gave her a kind of pride, to see herself how far she had come from the nervous wreck in an entirely different world, much like the one in front of her.

 _But none of it without him._

Doubt left her, and the previous determination rushed to replace it.

"I'm going back for him."

The light returned to Ilene's face as she looked up. The Ember turned too, but she was not happy in the slightest.

"In case you haven't forgotten, Saryn, I'm the one who makes the decisions. This trip of yours has nearly killed us, and I don't think staying here will help. We're going _home_." She ordered, trying her best to keep her authority.

"Fine." Antheia said flatly.

"I'm going after him, whether you like it or not. You two can come with me if you wish. But, seeing as there's no Beacon, it seems that we'll be here a while."

"Come back here, Antheia! I'm not letting you leave!" The Ember snapped.

But she did.


	18. Chapter 17

The floor met him, smashing into his nose with a sickening crack and painting itself with the blood that followed. Only then did he wake up, and with a muted cry of pain. Orion grimaced and sat himself up with one hand, the other delicately, and not without some discomfort, clicking the cartilage back into place.

Once the divine anaesthetics had taken their effect, he stood up and drearily looked at the Tenno in front of him. The eye stared back.

A loathing filled him, something so indescribably destructive that even fear itself did not escape him. His hands trembled with the rage that radiated from his chest and out of his fingertips. His fingers dug into his palms, involuntary, and he soon heard the all too refreshing sound of his blood dripping onto the floor. He found himself drawing the sword from its holster and across his palm, bloodying its edge a dark red. It drank, and drank, with such a ravenous thirst, it _shook_ him. Immediately, he snatched his hand away, shivering, and held it still, at the ready.

"Finally awake, hmm? Sweet dreams?" Oculus did not seem too interested in the answer, already beginning to pace by the wall and muttering to himself under cold breaths.

Orion did not bring himself to answer. He needed... release. His bloodied hands gripped the hilt tighter, yet he felt himself slipping.

"Come, let's walk." Oculus started to whistle as he turned on his heel, padding away into the darkened corridor.

Whatever held him back now left him. Orion leapt, crying out in rage, and landed with a heavy thud on the Tenno in front of him. Oculus turned in shock, mouth open in terror, but no scream came out. Orion plunged the broken sword into the Tenno's back and twisted, then ripping it out, spraying his lifeblood across the floor and walls like some sick work of art.

He attacked the neck next, carving deeper and deeper into the muscle tissue and eventually the bone, before slicing through completely. More blood, so much blood, gushed out onto the floor, filling the air with the all too familiar pungent smell of death. Decapitated, the body of Oculus twitched and shuddered weakly, before finally lying still.

Orion keeled over and groaned. He had killed. He expected this hunger, this yearning for slaughter, to cease. It never left him. He had murdered. But still, as he kneeled in a pool of his kin's blood, he felt a void inside. There was something wrong. Incomplete.

The body moved. It twitched and shuffled in momentary spasms under him, before a growth, putrid and infected, began to swell from the blood-caked stump of Oculus' neck. It crept along the aged stone floor, sprouting several fleshy appendages that inched their way to the messily severed head of Oculus. Orion jumped to his feet, sword still in hand, and backed himself into the wall. The growth had now joined with the head, and paled into the chalky colour of skin from diseased yellow and carmine red.

Bones snapped back into place, and the brutal wounds cut into his back sowed themselves shut, leaving naught but a scar. His legs bent themselves forward and stood up, as his spine straightened itself upright with a sickening crack. Orion could not help but shiver.

Its head turned, and stared straight into him. Orion froze. The mouth opened until the jawbone broke from the skull, and kept opening. The skin tore apart with inhuman fragility like the silken webs that lined the hallway.

"That... did not... hurt. You... cannot... hurt us." It spewed the words with the blood that trickled its mouth.

"What are you?" Orion's voice held, but only just. It knew.

"We... were... you." Was it sadness that rode on its vile tongue?

 _Oculus._

 _The Tenno has been infested. How horribly wasteful._

 _Quiet._

 _The time for mourning is not now, Ash. You must go. You are not safe._

 _I'm not running. His torment must end._

 _I have warned you._

 _Good. Now leave me alone._

No reply came. Orion stole a glance at the Pangolin sword resting on his leg. White, ethereal smoke poured from its edge. More than usual. There was something at play here.

"Become... us."

The voice changed. No longer did it wheeze with the worn rasps of the Oculus, but now purred with the insidiously playful voice of the Saryn.

Orion stifled a jutted breath when he turned round, coming to face whatever, or whoever, it was.

" _How can you just leave us, Ash?"_ It mimicked her, making a wet, squelching noise with its newly carved fleshy mandibles.

It took a step forward. Orion took one back. One forward. One back. The wall met him again.

"We... need."

 _Wait..._

"We?" Fearless he was, but the terror he felt was nothing he could have trained for. It was on a different level. Primal instinct, nothing more, nothing less.

It grinned at him. A hellish groan trembled from its chest, turning into a piercing shriek. Others answered it. Common sense overrode this unwelcome fear, and his legs took flight. He ran, and kept running, as the hallway filled with the lights of a million white eyes.


	19. Chapter 18

She walked along the spots of blood that covered the floor and the smeared footprints that followed behind every two steps. She didn't expose her Fangs just yet, and kept only her Sybaris under her arm with its polished grey muzzle pointed downward. She didn't want to have to pull the trigger, if it needed be. The death of another Tenno at her hands would be a scar she would bear for the rest of her days, and one that would bring her inescapable, bitter distrust. She had to get him back.

Her steps slowed as she approached a darkened hallway. Sinewy webs lined the entrance, and the intrusive, damp smell of wet earth circled her, making her feel light-headed as she stepped in. She shook off the feeling and rolled the blood back into her arm, which had grown tired from the jogging. She flipped her flashlight on, shining into the oppressive gloom with barely a few meters in front of her reflecting the weak light. A web of green cascaded down her helmet, pulling taught and exposing much further than the primitive reaches of the flashlight allowed.

With her vision somewhat restored, she continued. Dripping, she noticed, constant dripping, echoed from some way down the hallway. The pit-patter of tiny footsteps scraped down the wall and scurried away into a secluded crack in the floor. It was only the dripping and the anticipating click-clacking of her heels against the floor that escorted her ears, as her eyes gave her nought but blackness and her mouth nervous breaths. It was now that she silently regretted her choice in footwear; it may have kept up her reputation for bringing an aspect of style to their work, but in these dark hallways, with no one to appreciate it, she realised their utter uselessness as they continued clicking with each passing step, sending dull echoes through the halls.

The darkness grew thicker. It enshrouded her vision, letting her only barely see the ends of her fingertips and the ever-present golden shimmer from the magazine housing of her rifle. She squinted, trying to pick apart any details from the blackness. She found nothing. One final drip rang across the halls as she came to a cautious stop, and her feet stood parted, one behind the other.

Something indiscriminate, hiding from her in the shadows, only came to her attention now. It was the sound of footsteps. Footsteps that didn't belong to her. Footsteps that were coming closer.

Instinct brought her weapon into her shoulder, and guided her hands to the ready. She flicked the safety off, and hugged the wall. A breath in, a breath out, and she looked round the corner. It was coming nearer, yet she saw nothing. She recalled the familiar sensation of fear, the inescapable dread that gripped her on her first sighting of the Infested. Her determination cast it away, and she looked down the sights. Nothing. It was near.

She heard the breaths as it ran, the sound of rapid footsteps coming down hard and fast onto the ground as it came closer, and closer. Her heartbeat steadied, and she closed her left eye. The ever-present mist stilled...

And it revealed. Led by a long flash of silver, something struck her down, punching the breath out of her lungs and pinning her to the ground. She felt the cold touch of steel on her quivering throat, trying her best to keep her breathing steady. She drew a breath, along some relief in that she wasn't dead.

 _But for how long?_

The form upon her was humanoid, definitely. It drew harsh breaths, wounded and ragged. The pressure on her throat eased as it lay motionless on top of her and the mist trailed into the air, uncovering its bone white visage. The Tenno stood up, and offered a shaking hand. Antheia took it with equal tentativeness, never averting her gaze away from the Ash in front of her. Antheia took a comforting step back, eyes widening as it clasped a blood-spattered hand over the faceplate and undid the locks, sliding it off with ease and slotting it on the back of the helmet. Her heart beat twice when she saw his face; once for relief, once for fear. There was no mistaking the owner of those shadowy grey eyes.

He immediately bowed his head and brought his hand to his chest. Was it in guilt, or borderline respect?

"I apologi-"

She didn't stop her hand striking him, and again after that. No tears came to her eyes. She loathed the shameful satisfaction that came to her, and quickly stopped herself before she struck again. Once he'd recovered, Ash returned her vicious look, but kept his thoughts to himself.

"I can't forgive you." Her voice shook very slightly. He didn't seem to notice.

 _Not yet._

"That is your choice to make. We need to go, the others are in danger."

A screech attacked her ears from some distance down the corridor, but its horrid nature was enough to snap Antheia out of her bitter mood.

"Yes, we... we need to go."

Ash replied with a brief nod and hastily led her through the invading eerie darkness of the catacombs. He stopped for nothing, never breaking his stride. It made her question how he managed to see so well, even without any helmet to assist him. However, she found herself keeping shut her suspicions, for what reason did she have to doubt him?

The pair took the next few turns, and down another stretch of corridor filled with that same, repugnant smell of wet earth, before a sudden sea of white rushed to flood their vision. It ebbed almost immediately, revealing the somehow comforting gold-adorned halls of the Tower.

Ash didn't stop, only affording a few looks this way and that, and the odd sideward glance at Antheia. She followed suit, glad at least to be with another Tenno, regardless of who it may have been.

But still, amidst all her relief, she felt a little tug against her skin like a hook in her gut, one that would not relent, however much she tried to remove it. Their somewhat peaceful reunion had been a weight lifted off her slender shoulders, but she sensed something behind it that she felt she needed to know if she were to trust him.

"You've been awfully quiet." He lent a comment over the voice-link. Was it _him_ that started the idle conversations between them now?

"What did you expect?" Somehow she felt it impossible to stay angry at him, but she kept a tinge of sourness in her voice as she replied.

"Well, I've been gone for the past week or so, have I not? I certainly haven't been enjoying it, I thought I would receive somewhat of a warmer welcome, don't you think?"

"I would have, if you didn't try to kill me earlier."

He didn't reply at first. They started down a long stretch of grand hallway, being whisked through golden doors as they ran.

"That was someone else." He said, finally. She cocked a quizzical eyebrow and waited until the Tower ceased its beastly growling and slumbered once more.

"Someone else?"

"Yes."

It was her turn to not give a reply. Her eyes settled on his free hand, which hung in a loose grip on the handle of his blade. The blood that was there before had gotten lighter, and there was more of it, much more. Her voice was strung taut when she dared ask.

"Whose blood is on your hands?"

He only gave her a glance and reply monotonously, "It is not a 'who'. I don't know, either. Something not of this place. I tried to kill it."

"And?" She pressed him.

"I failed. Death escapes it, somehow. I'm not one to fight something I can't win against, so I ran. Into you." She could imagine his smoky eyes eying the walls as they ran, lost in the maze of the Tower and the fog of his thoughts.

"We can't stay, then." She decided.

He gave a dry laugh, one she had come to miss, and shook his head.

"No, we can't. What I fear, however," his voice dropped to a miserable tone as his paces slowed to a halt, "is that _they_ won't believe me."

Ash flung the doors open with one hand, staggering in with the other hand on his blistered side. He took a moment to catch his shallow breath and looked up.

A gunshot violently shook the air, leaving a gaping hole in the floor right where Ash was prepared to take another cautious step. He wasn't entirely surprised that it was the Ember who pulled the trigger.

"So that's what its like, is it?" Ash forced a chuckle.

"What makes you think you can show your wretched face here again, Ash?" She growled, smoking like the barrel of her pistol, which she held much more accurately now.

"At ease, sister, he's not here to hurt us." Antheia held her hands by her head as she turned the corner and lowered them slowly and calmly. The Ember's aim wavered upon seeing her but still did not come off Ash. Antheia stood her ground by his side, hands loosely hanging by her hips.

The Ember's claws rasped against the stone floor, ending with a final, ominous consecutive click as she stood before him, Lex pointed firmly to his helmet. He didn't move a muscle.

"Ember, what are yo-"

"Quiet. We'll talk later." She didn't even turn her head, still staring at the worn paleness of Ash's faceplate with her own eyes of fiery loathing.

"Now, as for you. Kneel." A small downward gesture with her Lex was all she needed to bring Ash to his knees. Antheia made no effort to quell the ever-increasing dread that crept up her throat like a centipede.

"And why, may I ask?" He irked her with a wry smirk.

"Keep quiet. It might save you a lot of pain." She stared him down, burning through his composure.

"Embe-"

He didn't finish his sentence. A shell sprang from the magazine housing, blood burst from a freshly made wound in his leg and a cry erupted from his throat. Ilene gave a stifled whimper, silent until now. The Nyx grimaced under her helmet, and turned on the noise filtering to drown out his pained howls.

He clenched his leg and pressed down hard on the wound with his thumbs. The blood flow slowed, and eventually stopped as the warframe dissolved the bullet and replaced the old flesh with rejuvenated, new skin.

"Apology accepted." She jeered over her shoulder as she made her way back to the group. When she passed Antheia, though, she opened a secure channel between the two and said sternly: "I hope you've come to your senses now, Saryn?"

She gave no answer. She didn't need to, since her throat was already choking on the pity she held back so dearly for him. Why she felt it, she did not know. But she couldn't leave him alone, not again.

"Come on, Ash, we're going home. And with you coming with us, ok?"

He turned to her and rose, coming up just over an inch from the top of her head. They stood, sharing nothing but silence, but that changed within a moment. She found herself peering over his shoulder under his embrace, eyes wide with surprise. Her heart beat twice again, but this time no fear came. It was a warm feeling, a feeling of summer rain, a feeling of fresh grass, a feeling of comforting warm sunlight, a feeling of... _affinity_. In this moment he brought his mouth to her ear, and spoke in the voice of a different man:

"Thank you, Antheia."

But it was only the moment. He left her there, slightly light-headed, and stalked over toward the rest of the group, staying particularly clear of the Ember. The Nyx looked wary, but seemed more attentive to her mental injuries than anything else. Ilene looked at least somewhat cheerful for his return, giving him an anxious pat on the back and a merry welcome. He did not return the gesture to his pupil, much to the disappointment plastered across her face, and instead went over to the Nimda, who was toying with a cubic gadget of some sort in his hands and paying no heed to Ash's arrival. Ash whispered a few words in his ear, to which Tosh gave him a worried look, then stepped away a few paces, dropping whatever he held in his hands to clatter onto the floor.

The Nepthys rolled her eyes and began to walk over to him, scowling all the while. "Come on, Ash, stop terrifying him, he's-"

"Infested." The word stopped her dead in her tracks and silenced the air between them.

"What do you mean? He's fine." She gestured her hand towards him, a puzzled yet concerned look on her face.

"I don't know what you're talking about, I swear. I just want to get off this Tower. Nothing more." Fear was apparent in his voice; Ash could smell it souring in the air.

"Don't lie to me." Ash ignored the Nephthys, staring right into the Nimda.

"Ash, stop it!" Ilene's exclamations had started to get the unwarranted attention of the Ember and Umbra, who both eyed him with furrowed brows.

"He is not _fine._ " His hand was creeping to his sword.

"To _you_ he may not be, but he's proven useful to us so far. On the other hand, you've been nothing but a burden to me, Ash, so I suggest you keep your wretched hands off him until we return home." The Ember scolded him over the voice-link, and made a point of keeping her hand on the hilt of the small cannon hanging off her hip. He backed away, but not too far.

From the back of the scattered group, Umbra observed with caution, and questioned why she hadn't searched the Nimda's mind upon their first meeting. She cursed through her teeth at her amateur's mistake. Dismissing any further thoughts, she instead looked into his. What slowed her steps was the fact that there _were_ none. Blackness. Not a single thread, not a single cognitive, free thought. Behind the ever-present throbbing of his heart, she saw nothing.

Wait, she had missed something. Its shape shrunk from her sight, but what she saw she didn't quite comprehend. Like a raging blizzard, white and clouded, it was an _eye_.

They had been walking for hours. The Tower stretched out forever, an endless blur of brazen gold and ivory white. There were some beautiful features of the Tower that met them along the way, notably the proud pink spring blossoms that adorned the hallowed shrines of the old gods, and the sparkling fresh waterfalls that flowed indefinitely from deep wells inside the walls, and the unassuming trees that stood tall, their arms reaching for the heavenly white suns that hung above all that bathed the rooms in cold white light.

Umbra kept her distance from the group, still processing what her eyes had shown her. Questions swarmed like tempestuous hornets in her mind. Why did she not detect a single thought in his head? Was he truly Infested? What was that eye?

She studied Tosh again. His movements didn't seem to have anything particularly unusual in them, and he had nothing but help to offer from their first encounter. Ash didn't move from his side. She found comfort in that, somehow.

"Sister." Ilene's inquiring voice filled her helmet.

"What is it?"

"We aren't getting anywhere. This is a dead end. We arrived here." Her concern was apparent, and it spread all too quickly to Umbra.

And she was right. The pillar which Lissandra had to weakly lean against after the jump, where Antheia had fallen, the barely perceptible markings of the portal warping the ceiling's material. They were back at the beginning.

"This is the place." Umbra spoke to all, commanding their attention immediately. They were all too happy to return home, it seemed.

"About time." Lissandra sounded relieved, for once.

"There's no psynapse link here. The Beacon doesn't work. How do you expect to get us through?" Tosh spoke up, louder and bolder than he normally did. Why did she feel desperation forcing his words?

"There are still dregs of rift energies displacing space and time above us. We may be able to use it to our advantage and boost our jump. A pseudo-psynapse, if you will." She explained.

"You had better hope we can, I'm not staying here to rot." Lissandra's brash tone was not like her, which lifted a few eyebrows from the other Tenno.

The burden of responsibility was once again upon the two sisters. Ilene looked to their comrades, and then to Umbra, who gave a comforting, simple nod. They sat facing each other, cross-legged, on the cold floor, and closed their eyes. Their minds wandered, floating up to the ceilingn, where small gashes that hid incomprehensible, mysterious energies shimmered and blurred in and out of existence. Umbra caught such a sliver and worked it apart with tiny, invisible arms, threading and unthreading the tiny lattices of time and space interwoven to create the tapestry of the Void. It was truly beautiful.

Ilene must have noticed this too, for stars shone in her black eyes like the twinkling moon on a midnight sea, and her mouth hung open, stricken with awe. She looked back down to Umbra, truly pleased, and grinned.

"Are you ready?" Hope shone with the stars in her eyes.

"You know I am." Umbra returned a weak smile.

The two then began to stretch the threshold, gripping it with powerful arms of psychic will and tearing it into reality. A rip opened before the eyes of the Tenno, sucking in small pebbles and odd globlets of water from the nearby fountains, then loose pieces of aged bronze, then entire sections of the masonry. The field intensified in its unrelenting strength, the Tenno only managing to withstand its incredible pull and at the same time dodge the fist-sized chunks of rock flung by their heads.

And just when it seemed they would be sucked into the Void, the rift stabilised. It now gave a mellow, mysterious glow, fracturing into the air in tiny shards of shimmering glass. Lissandra impatiently nudged Antheia out of her trance and beckoned for her to follow with a forward shrug of her shoulder. Her eyebrows furrowed under the blazing crest of her helmet as an unwelcome sensation of doubt and suspicion formed at the back of her mind. She kept it at bay and reached a hand through, then a leg, then the other, and soon her whole body. The silken end secured by a steel brooch of her Uru syandana fluttered behind her footsteps, held aloft by the cold cosmic wind of the Void, before disappearing as well. Ash, with some incredibly unlike eagerness, stepped through after her, followed by an equally eager Antheia.

Now it was only the three of them. Umbra let off a small disturbance in the psychic flow, enough to show her sister she was going through. The portal shook when she stood up and walked over, but it held. Umbra vanished into the shadows as she went onto the other side. Two were left. Ilene took great care to keep the rift steady as she came alongside it. Tosh stayed near, looking round every few seconds, perhaps in fear of some kind.

"You have nothing to fear. Come on, after me." She spoke reassuringly, but held an authoritative tone. He had grown strangely timid. Her eyes narrowed, but she carried on through. Colours blurred into another as the dark blanket of space draped round her helmet, and then soon formed back into the familiar shapes of the Tenno she knew. She was through. Well, not entirely; Tosh was still on the other end. She tried to step through again. But she couldn't. Panic rose from her chest, rising up to grip her throat as she looked back. The others had noticed. He wouldn't let go.

She tugged and pulled, but the hand was clamped down, and her pulling back in. The Ember rushed to her and fired into it, but it only shook slightly. Ilene shrieked and grabbed her Zauber, plunging the barrel into the vile flesh and pulling the trigger. The energy orb inside devoured its flesh, and set her arm free. She staggered, off balance, before something even worse closed around her legs, pulsating with putrid black blood pushing against the arteries covering its surface. It dragged her screaming across the ground, held back only by the Tenno grabbing her arms. Her limbs and joints burned with pain as the two sides pulled her this way and the next. Any harder, and the joint would pop from its socket. Her warframe pulsed with energy, sending small shocks to try and ward off her attackers, but to no end. She was being sucked through, even with the might of four Tenno behind her.

Whatever had latched on to her was something worse, for she felt her own mind being pulled away. The psychic essence inside the webs of her intellect began to shatter and break free; flowing into whatever had her in its grip. Her grips with consciousness were slipping, but she tried all the harder to reign them in.

Something horrible spoke to her, something else, only a hint of a male human voice left in it:

" _You cannot leave. We will not let you. You belong here, Child of the Void."_ It tempted. She refused.

" _Do not oppose! Submit!"_ It punished her with another psychic onslaught, draining her of her already spent energy reserves. Her muscles weakened further, barely holding against the imploding gravity of the cosmos.

" _Close the portal!"_ Umbra screamed over the howls of the air flying past her, into the rift.

 _But... but I'll-_ She hesitated, sobbing as new pain tore into her legs. The hands gripping hers were slipping, and tears filled her eyes.

" _You need to close it! NOW!"_ Umbra's voice was raw, and desperation flooded through.

 _I..._ She couldn't hold on.

Her eyelids closed, sowed shut from the pain, and the portal closed with them. She knew nothing more.


	20. Chapter 19

They found him in his quarters, the Wraith perched by his side, whispering and muttering into his ear. The Frost didn't seem to notice their unwelcome arrival at first, but Thanatos certainly did.

"Intrigued. Our lost sheep find their way home, it seems." He lowered his tone, perhaps out of regret, or even fear. He looked, of course, to Orion. "And this one still lives."

"Indeed they have." The Frost ignored Orion's presence in the room, purposely not offering him the satisfaction of being noticed. He knew how to play him.

"And here they stand, with such _audacity_ ," he rose from his kneeling to face them, "as if nothing has happened, as if they haven't abandoned their brothers and sisters in such a dire time, as if they could all not have perished with _him._ " He pointed his gloved finger at Orion, one Orion had come to long recognise.

"You left me to _die_!" Ash exploded, instantly grabbing his sword. The icy air flew around the scythe which came to meet him and rested gently beneath his jaw. The others didn't dare intervene.

" _That would be most unwise."_ A human voice stated from under the hood, through the amber eye. Ash relaxed his grip, but his hand did not stray too far.

"This is not over." His words stabbed daggers at the Nekros, dripping with poisonous loathing. He would find somewhere for their eventual 'discussion', but here was not the place, now not the time.

The Ember showed genuine humility and knelt down on one knee, too which the others did the same, apart from Ash, which surprised no one. "We apologise, Clan General., but it was a mission we had to take. We needed-"

"I don't need your petty apologies. What is done is done." He looked pitifully down at the Ember with those icy grey eyes. Air hissed through his teeth as he exhaled. "And what of the Nephthys? She was just cleared as a Silver Initiate! I would expect you as her sister, Nyx," he swept his steely gaze to her, "to think more sensibly than this. Evidently my trust was misplaced in you. In everyone in front of me."

They dared not answer back to him. Silence hung like a noose under their throats. The Wraith took his leave, scythe held at his side.

The Frost turned back to the icy altar, which glistened and sparkled in the White Sun's light. It lit up the room, shining against various battleaxes and war hammers that hung in ceremonial wraps of dark blue and painted with words of ancient tongue. The stars which they had come from not so long ago twinkled outside the viewing gallery.

"I have no time to speak on this matter any longer. Prepare your arms and your warframes, and give anything you may need repaired to the Vauban. The Grineer come in their thousands to this sector, led by General Vay Hek. The tracker that was implanted in Ash must have sent out a signal to them, and now they swarm us like hornets." His anger was already quelled, and now his face looked of nothing but pity.

"You may have brought about our destruction, Ash. I surely hope you can help us avert it." He shook his head as he knelt back down.

"Now go. I must pray for His blessing; maybe then we may see tomorrow."

Umbra wanted nothing more than sleep. But sleep would never come until she saw her sister safe. She couldn't even look upon her when she first brought her into the medical bay and lay her down on the linen sheets. When she couldn't hold back the tears, she had gone outside and let them flood through. Her hand still hurt from hitting it against the wall in a small fit of anger; anything to let the pain out. Then waves of sorrow racked her body, destroying any defences she might have had. After what seemed like eons later, once she composed herself and her eyes were dry, she approached the Trinity and Vauban with a meek smile, as if she had left her terrible bereavement outside the door.

"Will she wake up?" She asked the dreaded question.

The Vauban spoke first, gruff as ever. "Of course she will, nothing to worry about. Her body has simply gone into shock. However, whether she wakes up the _same_ , whichis another question entirely."

"The same?"

"Whoever – or whatever – grabbed her through that portal destroyed her psynaptic link. Her brain has suffered no lasting damage, but she will not be able to wield a Nyx, Nepthys or any other psynapse-based warframe again."

His words were fists, hitting her harder into the wall with every passing second. She felt her face flare up again, and the waves of grief started to crash against her, like the sea throwing itself at her high cliffs, chipping away a bit at a time. She covered her face with her hands and sank into the wall.

"I'm sorry, Umbra." The Trinity softly placed her metal hand onto Umbra's shoulder, barely whispering.

The Nyx shook off the futile considerations with a shrug of her arm. She mumbled another useless question through her fingers.

"What about her legs?"

The Trinity immediately looked away and walked back to the machine threaded into Ilene. Vulcan also averted his gaze, evidently made uncomfortable by the subject. And he had every right to be; her legs were severed from the waist down, cauterised by the maw of the Void.

"I have a few ideas, of course, but nothing right now, nothing that would work, unless..." The Vauban let his thoughts spill from his mouth. It was a horrible habit he had and one Umbra detested.

"Unless what? Can you just tell me without blathering on about it, Vulcan?" She snapped, perhaps too harshly.

"Right, right." He scratched the iron grey stubble salted on his chin as he keyed in glyphs on a control panel, built next to a large empty frame imbedded in the wall. "Here," he paused as the outlet came forward and whirred round, revealing a Warframe coloured in streaks of pure white, and a small slivers of sky blue peeking from in between, and proud red banners adorned down the sides and across the front. A beak with a slight crook at the end was crowned on its head, and graceful wings unfurled at the arms and legs. "is our latest creation. The 'Zephyr'. Lighter than air, fully operational and combat ready. All we need now is someone to pilot it."

Despite the grand entrance, and the 'stylish' colour choices, Umbra was left unimpressed and with a near frown on her lips.

"Tell me how this will help her. I'm not interested in your new toys, Vulcan." She grumbled.

"Well, Eir and I have been running a few tests and scans, and Ilene should be a perfect fit. She's in a good shape, so to speak," He got a sharp glare from Umbra with that, but she didn't interrupt, "and the suit will not require much movement with the legs, as you may imagine. Besides, we can fit prosthetics in place, and then she'll be ready to go back into the field in no time at all."

"I don't _want_ her in the field, alright? I want her _safe._ " Umbra ordered, not sparing the Trinity any spite. Eir wrinkled her nose and went back to her incessant tapping at the keyboard next to Ilene. She slept so peacefully, it was almost alien to her. Umbra looked down and shook her head, once again burying her head in her hands.

"Give her legs again, but I don't want her near the fighting. She isn't ready. Keep her down here, or in the Mechanicus, or even in the Dead Hallways, I don't care; as long as she isn't harmed. I can't see her hurt again."

She felt her face grow hot again, and her vision blurred from the tears welling up inside her red eyes. Umbra closed her helmet and headed towards the door, pausing only to force herself to look at her sister. She couldn't do it, she realised, as her face crumpled and she fled the room a sobbing mess.

The ravens were restless. Their unwelcome screeches pierced his eardrums. They flew round the room, sometimes perching on the dead trees, or they swooped through the metal catacombs under his feet, but their songs – if you could call them that – never stopped. Any normal Tenno wouldn't last it in this chamber two days. But Thanatos was not a Tenno. No more.

"Request. Brothers of the Wraithguard, share with me your omens. My Eye does not see in this realm."

They kept to the shadows, cowering behind the ravens that circled him.

"Order. Do not hide, brothers. I do not come to harm." He began to pace round the candle-lit room, looking to the flickering shadows. There, it moved. A serpentine form, one of many, flitted in-between the shadows like a puppet behind a screen.

" _Noszh ret'kire sak'erdosz."_ They spoke in a cursed tongue, forgotten to many, and for good reason. The ravens fell unerringly silent.

"Accepted."

His hand was a snake itself, shooting out and back in within an instant. In its skeletal grasp returned one of the ravens. He drew a dagger with his other hand and plunged it into the wretched thing. The blade went through his hand, but he paid it no mind; he was beyond feeling pain in this body. Its cries died with it, but the few of its brethren that defiantly remained perched in the trees chorused even louder. The blood of the raven trickled through the gaps between his fingers and dripped onto the floor, drip-dripping out the seconds before the others' reply.

" _Ka'vel tak arsine. Esch ma'lek naves, Thanatos. Voszh izch bet'ikraser."_ They hissed like snakes, slithering in the shadows of the shrine.

"Annoyance. You know I do not speak that tongue here. You know the consequences of those not of Nyktagün to hear such words."

"Very well. We will share with you what we see, but expect nothing more."

 _"_ Accepted."

"Heed." They ordered. "Darkness comes to this place. With it rides corruption, decay and death. There will be many who will fall, most insignificant, most unimportant. Your fellow Tenno will be among them." Their sinister voices clambered on one another, but they all spoke the same, ominous words.

"Warning. You are not to disregard my kin as _insignificant_. Know this." The Wraith's voice showed a flare of anger to it. This was new to them.

"Unimportant. They will die, like the rest. Among them: a phoenix, a wolf, a jester, a mother."

"Confusion. A mother? I do not understand." A stray raven swooped down to perch on his shoulder, digging its cold claws into his armour. It did not bother him as he stared quizzically at the loudest voice which stalked him round the room.

"Advised. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, Thanatos. Know _this._ " They cackled at that, jeering at him from all sides.

"Demand. I wish to know more." He stopped his pacing and tried to find them again through his Eye. They evaded him, but didn't stop their intrepid taunting.

"Denied. Seek your own knowledge, for you will not find it from us."

"Unacceptable. There must be a way to averting this."

"Laughable. Your search for salvation is futile. We have been curious, brother. Why did you leave us? It puzzles us still."

"Answer. I have my reasons. I was... bored."

"Query. Was her embrace not enough?" Snake eyes narrowed behind him.

"Agreement. It was not. My death was not the end for me. It was a beginning. This body is a vessel of my journey. Easily replaceable. My soul is not." A dull tinge of emotion flashed in his eye before being lost to the ever-present darkness of the mist swirling in his hood.

"Pity. The mortal coil does not show promise to us. Your potential is limited. We prefer a life of consideration, and thought."  
"Disregard. I show no care for your selfish desires. Your pity is misplaced; you should bear its shame for such cowardice."

"Denial. You swim in a black sea of ignorance, only saved by the beacon of knowledge that we behold. We waste our time. Trouble us no more."

"Curse. You shall rue this day, _Arta'kas._ This is unacceptable."

A snake's hiss and a diseased cackle was all that answered the Wraith before the candles were snuffed out by a single hand of shadow.

The air had become notably thicker and more humid, and reeked with the smell of the blood. Thanatos held the bird's corpse a lot more gently now, holding it close to his chest. A few uttered words escaped the black confines of his hood as he strengthened his grip. Black energy trailed from his arms and ran like blood across his fingers into the gaping wound in the bird's chest. He spoke the final rites as he drew its wings over its ruined body like black feathery curtains. A moment passed as he finished, but it had worked.

A weak caw rattled from its chest as Thanatos felt its tiny heart beat in his hands. Before long it could flap its wings, and then it was all too eager to escape his hands and to join its friends, seemingly ungrateful and unknowing of its recent trip to whatever raven hell it had been damned to.

"Apologies. They will not join you just yet, _Arta'kas_. Not until _I_ will it." Thanatos stared up to the flickering candles. Under the hood, he would quite probably have smiled.

The past few days had not been kind. He'd lost more blood than he could think of, spilled even more, and seen a thousand living nightmares he never should have. Exhaustion did not come often, but he was starting to feel its effects. He wiped some of the tiredness off his face with his hand and yawned a rare yawn.

He was sat on a crudely built bench, nailed together with several stray planks of oak from the main training platforms around the room. He wasn't one for the art of carpentry. He was made for something different. The split Nikana was held loosely with his fingertips, the point of the blade touching lightly on the stone floor. He spun it slightly and caught it again when it started to teeter and fall. With it he spun the web of his thoughts, trying to unmake the mess of memories spread across his mind like spilled cans of paint. Red was a most prominent colour, one of blood, one of rage, one of flame. It spoke of past regrets and memories he wished he'd forget. Then, of course, there were the fires. He couldn't rip them from his mind. Again and again he would see the red-haired woman dead on the ground and the Stalker and Father and the killing and th-

"Ash? May I come in?" She startled him. He snapped out of his hypnotic spinning of the sword and sheathed it again behind him. She invited herself, followed by the clicking of her heels. Her helmetless face hid some personal intent. He eyed her suspiciously.

"What happened to inhospitable?" Orion inquired.

"I might have gotten used to it." She had changed the paint on her Saryn warframe, he noticed. A shade darker on the cream, and now her apple red ripened into a bold vermillion, complimented by deep shades of purple that drank in the light and let the rest of her colours bloom. She hopped up to sit above him on one of the lower scaffoldings. She was hiding something behind her back.

He grew tired of asking the same question. "Why are you here, Antheia?"

"I brought something else to cheer you up. It's been a hard few days; I'd imagine they aren't over, so why not celebrate the moment while it lasts?" She suggested.

"I'd be amazed if you could lift my spirits. I guess it's no worth being a miser for my last hours, is it?"

"That's exactly what we _don't_ want. Here, take this." She held out a bottle with strange writing on it, marked with a black label. Oak brown liquid sloshed around inside as she gave it a small jiggle along with a pearly smile.

"I'm not interested in whatever biological horror you've made this time, Antheia. You'd better take your 'gift' to someone deserving of it. Maybe the Vauban might like it."

She chuckled at that. The smile stayed on her lips as she unscrewed it and brought it to her nose, to which she wrinkled her nose in a marvelled type of disgust and amazement. She held out the open bottle to him. He took it unsurely.

"Don't be daft. It's alcohol. 'Visky', I think it's called. I certainly haven't tried it yet, but I'm curious. Anything's better than the factory standard ethanol they serve to the Lancers on Ceres, surely?"

"Right. Where did you get this from, may I ask?"

"Not from the Lancers on Ceres, I can tell you that much."

"I guess that's good enough then, hm?"

She giggled adorably at that. He loved it when she did, it was a shame he couldn't hear it more often. Recent times didn't allow for such things.

"Very well. I'll try it."

She held a light smirk as he held the bottle to his lips, swishing it around for a bit and letting the sharp smell of the liquid rush through his nostrils. It was quite refreshing, but not like a dive into a lake, or a cool drink from the fontis in the shrine; this was a more savage, raw type of refreshment, like electricity jolting through his veins. He took a daring mouthful down, cautious but intrigued. It burned his throat like acid and tasted venomous, but there was a dim, buzzing pleasure to it afterward. He found himself smirking with this pleasure, which encouraged Antheia all the more.

She grimaced as she took her mouthful down, but eventually they both got used to the taste. They shared another two or three awkward sips, accompanied by vulgar coughing and hushed giggling, mostly on Antheia's part. Orion kept his composure and denied the bottle when she offered it back to him. They had barely gotten through a quarter of it. He set it down by his leg, where Dust lay in a worn leather scabbard.

"You know, Ash, you aren't so bad when you aren't out in the field. You become somewhat bearable." She offered the comment with less tact than she usually did; the alcohol may have been stronger than she thought. Nevertheless, she came down with that heavenly grace that preceded her, feet barely making a sound as she landed on her delicate soles.

"What's your point?"

"I'm saying that you should try and get out of this shell you keep yourself in. Start fighting for what is right, you know? Be more like... this."

He didn't answer.

"And maybe then, who knows, you could do something good for once." She gently laid her hand on his shoulder. He twitched slightly but didn't shrug her off.

"For once?"

"You know what I mean."

Her rose-scented hair enveloped him for a moment as she leaned in and pecked him on the cheek. He didn't quite know how to react, but she didn't need a reaction, for she was already gone and making her way towards the door.

"Antheia, your 'gift'? I don't think I'll-"

"Keep it. We'll finish it sometime, ok? After all this is over."

She left him with a playful wink and the same hiss of the doors. His head bowed to stare at the floor.

"Of course."


	21. Chapter 20

There were twenty-eight. Twenty eight Tenno against countless Grineer, with nowhere to run. Umbra thought it both a curse and a blessing that the last of the shuttles were now leaving; Ilene would soon be safe, and would carry on without her. It still stabbed a dagger of wrenching sorrow into her chest whenever she even thought about Ilene. How she would be alone. Part of her wanted to go on the shuttles as well, to join her sister so that they could be together once more. But, alas, the universe did not allow her such luxuries.

She readjusted her crescent-bladed Tipedo on her back so that it didn't jut into her shoulder blades, and then headed to the small handful of Tenno congregating in the centre of the lobby. She took notice of the beauty of the Clan's main lobby; glorious red banners adorned the sides and glass staircases wound like snakes into the upper levels. Several statues guarded the doorways, sculpted in striking poses of battle and considerate thought alike. A particular piece appealed to her, placed in the middle of the room. It was a hawk, posed in mid-flight with a screeching visage, the thrill of the hunt in its eyes. It was a remarkably built sculpture, one that brought the clan of the Diving Hawks great pride. She stepped into the small crowd and quietly and uninterruptedly made her way through to the front, coming to a stop next to Antheia. She swore she could smell something like alcohol on the Saryn, but she kept her comments to herself.

They all felt the same, it seemed, for the same listless expression was written on their faces like morose grey paint. Several of them she had not seen for many months and some she did not even recognise. She felt somewhat curious as to their origin, but she avoided any queries into the matter with the Frost; they took any help they could get. As soon as he came across her mind, she noticed him step onto the stone boundary of the hawk statue and give a curt _ahem_ to catch their attention. Their silence was immediate. His helmet was tucked under his arm and his eyes were colder than ever.

"Greetings, brothers and sisters. I am sure that you know what danger approaches us. That is not important. We face dangers every day of our lives; now is merely another. You are not the type that flee, that dwell on the past, the type that look for excuses. You were chosen for a reason, Hawks." The crowd beamed with new pride, chests a little more puffed out and eyes a little wilder. The Frost had obviously made some sort of preparation; this was no half-hearted speech, this was a rally, one that would rile them up unlike any artificial drug.

"And that reason comes down to today, and to every day after it. The Grineer come in their disgusting masses, here to corrupt and destroy what we hold most dear. Will you allow this?" Unruly words, maybe a scattered few 'no's were heard from the group. "I said, _WILL YOU ALLOW THIS_?!" He roared.

They roared back in their defiance, a chorus of voices united, brother and sister. The Hawk had spread its wings, and its cry for war resonated through the galaxy.

Skarlaggh was hungry for blood. The crazed rattles on the cages around him rang through the metal hangar of the _Gruzh-Nakaal._ Hek had brought in as many platoons for the assault as possible, as well as his brooding Fomorian battleships to shatter any defences that might impede them. He didn't have any place among them, though.

They called him different, they called him crazy. They gave him a name: the Manic. He no longer had a number, either; the Grineer did not want to associate themselves with him, but his usefulness kept him from the firing squad. He licked his diseased gums, feeling the metal spikes of his teeth with his tongue and tasting the salty taste of blood that followed when he cut it. He giggled and began to drool in his helmet. The saliva cooled in the air-conditioned chill of the hangar and trickled down his sweaty neck and onto his surgically tormented chest. It had been way too long.

"How much more?"

Mokraggh chose to speak the Common Tongue, even if it was garbled and rotten. Skarlaggh had no idea how he had learnt it, but the months spent in his cell would allow him to overhear a few snippets here and there, and often from the fearful sobs of the civilian population left slaughtered on their Hunts.

"Quiet. Count. Do not care." Skarlaggh's wasn't any better, but as pack leader he got his point across well enough.

" _Onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnineteneleventwelvethirteen..."_

The corner of his lip twitched. "Quiet."

" _Twentytwentyonetwentytwotwentythreetwentyfourtwentyfive_..."

"QUIET." Skarlaggh's claws slammed into the cell to his right, biting deep into the metal and slicing out onto the other side. One of the guards turned round and yelled something at them. Skarlaggh's tongue whipped round his lips again and he snarled.

Mokraggh fell silent to the cell on the right. A dog-like whimper teetered through the holes opened by the claws in the wall.

The hangar doors were opening now. The other soldiers clung to the sides, guns hugged to their chests. The locks on Skarlaggh's cell swung open and they cuffed him immediately, one electric rod poised to his neck. His brothers were taken out in the same way. They were _all_ the same. They were _all_ hungry.

And they would all feast, very, _very_ soon.

 _BAM!_

The door rattled again, giving only a bit more. The Tenno had taken up positions all around the room; an Excalibur stood guard behind a pillar, his Latron's sights poised at the entrance; Umbra preferred her trusted Orthos and her mind and kept closer to the doors with her staff slowly swaying in her hand; the Banshee lay prone across the top of the golden gate into the main lobby with her Vectis locked on the ever-giving doors.

 _BAM!_

She ran another sonar scan. Thirty-three marines, five Gunners and an Arctic Eximus. She didn't need sights on her rifle to see that it was nothing good.

 _BAM!_

The constant battering of the door was interfering with her sensors and shook her "vision" with each strike. She grimaced.

 _BAM!_

The next one was worse than the rest and created a huge dent in the door. The metal bent into a grotesque likeness to Hek's face.

BAM!

The doors were flung open, and out poured the Grineer. Time slowed to a near-halt, and sound rippled like soft waves lapping at the shore. The Banshee knew these things, but she wasn't sure from where. That will be a thought for another time.

The room exploded as a flurry of adrenaline, hearts pounding, bullets flying, Grineer dying. Umbra plunged the staff's blade into the nearest marine's head then sliced the mechanical torso off another. Her weapon dictated her movements, guiding her through gunfire and weaving in and out of combat. Her style was flawless, her movements unbroken. The blades rang with the screams of dying Grineer, who stood nought of a chance.

Green energy surrounded her as she took upon a meditative pose, the Flowering Lotus. Petals became blades of pure energy, and all the bullets fired at her, no matter how many, turned against their masters and flung themselves at them. Ten Grineer died in a flash of jade, and four more burned into nothingness from the crystalline spikes imbedded in their bodies. The Gunners were next, falling in a cascade of shimmering blight and lead rain. One of them, before their violent death, slashed down at the Nyx with the bayonet on its rifle and slicing into her warframe and bare white flesh. She groaned as its brute force slammed her into the ground and punched the air out of her lungs. She drew the Pyrana from her hip and fired until the pistol couldn't fire anymore. The Gunner, now a mesh of smoking shrapnel and shredded bloody flesh, crashed down next to her.

The Banshee terminated the other group of marines, but it did not appear to be the last, for more swarmed in between the prominent silhouette of the Eximus. The Banshee swore when her sonar gave her a moment of solitude to observe the scene.

The Eximus was going to be another challenge entirely. The Excalibur, only supporting with Latron fire until now, came out from behind the pillar and drew his iconic Skana. It flashed a brilliant flash from its tip, scorching the eye lenses of the Grineer who dared look his way. He slammed his front foot forward into the ground while putting the weight on his heel and driving the sword behind his back. His warframe pulsed briefly and the gunfire seemed to stop for a millisecond of time. In this small frame the Banshee loaded the last round in her magazine and found the centre of mass on the Eximus. She fired.

The Skana left a white-hot trail through the platoon, encountering only the slightest resistance at the Arctic Eximus, where it left a gaping hole in its side. The bullet from the Vectis screeched into this gap and shattered the gargantuan soldier in two. Its Gorgon roared its owner's agony as it fell to the floor, dead. The remaining Grineer, now without the bittersweet cold of the Eximus to protect them, quickly fell to the Banshee's unrelenting fire and the beautiful mêlée between the marines and the Excalibur and Nyx.

It was not long before the hall fell silent and the smell of gunpowder had descended. The Nyx suffered a nasty-looking gash running down the left side of her back, but her warframe was already looking to repair the damage over it as it softly fizzled over the wound. The Excalibur silently checked the fresh corpses for any signs of life, making swift thrusts and twists with his Skana before drawing it out to go on to the next body. He showed no sign of injury.

The Banshee took the peace of the moment to look out to the rest of the Dojo with her sonar. The Saryn's group had already engaged a much larger enemy, it seemed, but she had an equally powerful entourage of the Volt, another Excalibur, two Mags – one, sadly, had fallen – and Palatinus. She held no worry for their survival; they were all able students of hers.

The Frost led the main defence, wielding the full power of both Rhinos, the Nova, another Nyx, Vulcan and Eir. The black Wraith stalked among them, riding the enemy down on his steed of strife. Several Spectres had been summoned from old debts, it seemed, as the the Corrupted swelled the ranks of the defence. She could hear the chatter of machine guns, and the deathly cries of men answering them. The Frost yelled over the noise, rallying them once again as the next wave of Grineer thundered in through the narrow doors.

She chuckled to herself. Odin sure loved his war cries, something to get the troops all riled up. But as the chuckle died in her throat, she realised she still was laughing. But... this wasn't _her_ laughter.

The pattering of footsteps resounded somewhere far away, down at the entrance of the chamber where the Nyx and Excalibur talked as they continued checking the bodies. The laughter didn't go away. Her right ear twitched. She slowly brought her hand from the rifle to her hip. The laughter got louder. The others must have heard it, surely? Her heart beat faster. Her hand still crept down her side, just a few more inches until-

She felt a coldness of a blade pressing down on her neck, only just drawing blood.

"Found. You."

Death truly was beautiful. The black mistress never lifted her ashen veil to the Wraith, but he sensed a serene, definite beauty under it all. Here he felt at peace. His path to take. His ground to tend for.

Blood met steel in a crimson red wedding across the battlefield, and its praise was sung by the screams of the dying and the pounding of the planetary defence cannons beat with the drums of war. The hundreds of corrupted, tortured souls, encased in their eternal camouflaged tomb, were set free by his hand with each passing hour like heavenly doves.

The scythe found its mark with every stroke and swing. He did not like pain. He had suffered enough to know its power. This power he administered with almost no leniency; every swing of his scythe had to connect, it had to cut them down without hesitation. Such was his expertise, one that he had fine-tuned into perfection like the sharpened ethereal edge of his scythe.

And they would know death. Their numbers thinned, but more approached from the entrance. Several were larger than their grunt counterparts, and wielded biomass-infected weapons that oozed a saliva-like liquid from their maws. The Ogris and Torid; the twins of destruction and waste.

The Bombard, Ogris in hand, fired off a deadly salvo at the rubedo-plated doors while the Torid-wielder launched his payload of toxic canisters. Thanatos did not need to breathe, but the effects of the gas were having an effect on his allies, who coughed and became sluggish in their movements. The Vulcan, who had taken to his machete for combat, miss-stepped a wide chop, and the force of the alloy blade sent him staggering to the side. The marine he faced swung with the butt of its gun into Vulcan's face, connecting with brutal force. The Vauban reeled back and caught his footing somewhat haphazardly. He took one of the metal spheres attached to his armour and twisted it. It lit up and beeped a few times, changing colour from blue to red. Vulcan gave a grunt as he lobbed the sphere at the marine, which landed with a heavy _clunk_ and caved in the front of its helmet.

It beeped one last time before it exploded in a flash of brilliant white light. This light cleared and the sphere hopped off the ground and started to suck in everything nearby. The marines meshed together as flesh and metal, tumbling into an infinitely small vortex of unimaginable force. The pallid mass of meat left on the ground filled the air with a fresh wave of blood. The Nova only had a moment to gag before the Grineer launched their assault once again, launching salvo after salvo of explosives and horrific chemicals alike.

The defence was weakening. The Nekros heard those serpentine voices in his head, cackling as their dark prophecy neared. Something needed to be done. After the momentary deliberation the combat allowed him, he regrettably decided what he had to do. The Word of She would be uttered, a silence he had not broken for a century. He separated the blade of his scythe from a marine's body and swept his free hand across the incoming waves of camouflaged green.

One word he whispered: " _Morti'sker."_

"This area is clear. The gates have been breached, but I've put up a psychic barrier to-. Yes. I said YES. All accounted for. Fifty-six. I know. Yes. Good luck, Prelate, Lotus guide you."

The checks were finished. The Excalibur had occupied himself with religiously cleaning his sword on the hard metal gauntlets on his forearm and seemed more determined wipe it clean of blood than to listen to Umbra's politely ignored attempts at conversation. She frowned and crossed her arms, specially putting her weight on one prominent hip. The Excalibur chose to ignore her and keep cleaning.

She scowled and yanked his torso across his shoulder, leaving him sprawled on the floor. The Skana clattered down next to him. The Excalibur straightened up and gave her a _hmmph_ in reply before picking up his newly-polished sword. He followed behind her, observing how she carried herself, how her feet never seemed to touch the ground.

 _Probably some psychic bullshit, as always. Stuck-up little c-_

 _ **Keep your thoughts to yourself, Apostle. On second thought, don't think them at all.**_

He gulped. "Apologies, ma'am."

 _ **No need to be so formal. I'm not "little" either. Just over six feet.**_

He gave a polite chuckle and looked up to the gate. The Banshee's Vectis poked out from behind it, but no sound came from it. The air was thick with the stench of blood, but that had already settled in his nose. This was something else. He stopped, and Umbra slowed her footsteps when she heard his were not following.

"What is it?"

"The Banshee. She's still there."

Umbra narrowed her eyebrows under her helmet.

"Ayasha?"

No reply.

"Ayasha, what's going on?"

Nothing.

Umbra reached out to the Vectis and pulled it very slightly. Perhaps the sounds had overwhelmed the Banshee and rendered her unconscious. Not entirely unheard of. That was it. Nothing else. But when she pulled, it was much heavier than she anticipated. She gave it one hard tug and it came loose, but so did a hand. She kept pulling, and she felt bile rising up her throat and scalding her until she couldn't breathe. She kept pulling. Her eyes shot open. She shrieked and let go, letting the body of Ayasha the Banshee to smack onto the floor.

The Excalibur didn't have a comment to give, nor did she want one. Her helmet separated to reveal her reddened eyes as her hand caught another shriek from escaping her mouth. She tried to inhale, but the horror that squeezed her lungs did not let her. The Banshee's back had been rended apart, the ribs sliced down on both sides and her lungs ripped from the front of her chest. In the mind of the most tormented of them, they looked like wings of flesh.

She could not bring herself to touch Ayasha, as if the contact would break the wavy screen of tears in front of her and make the Banshee really dead. She didn't want to believe it. Her reluctant, trembling fingers finally found Ayasha's neck in the futile search of any pulse. She only felt her own, which raced at a million beats per minute. The tears would not come. Her face was on fire, her heart cold; her body was being torn apart from the extremes of the torments unleashed upon her.

"Pick her up."

The Excalibur obeyed without question, softly cradling her head and her knees and forcing himself to look away to the Nyx. Umbra clenched her teeth and shut her eyes for a second. Grief nearly overtook her, but she fought and stayed strong.

She barely found the words.

"Bring her with us. She will not be found among _them._ "

"This will not hold."

The planetary defence lances were firing more than ever at the incoming shower of drop pods as the second Fomorian battlecruiser to dock alongside them exploded into a destructive display of fire and plasma. The vivid yellow and fierce red flashed across Orion's torn face, and his lips bent into a slight frown. The first waves of Grineer lay dead around him, creating a fine path to tread on for the forces that followed, which now came, and they appeared to be double – no, triple - its size.

Antheia was playing with her Fangs again, flicking each one across her slender fingers, spinning them on the back of her thumbs and starting over again. She had noticed the approaching foe with worry in her eyes. They narrowed so very slightly. She sheathed both daggers with a simultaneous _click_.

"I think we all know that, Ash." Her hair was dishevelled and loose strands fell across her face, which she blew away and gave up when they drifted back down. Dried blood was flecked across her cheek.

He regarded the scene with a bit more attention. There was incongruence behind it all, behind those exploding streaks that spread themselves across the blackness. There, there it was. It was the way the ships moved. The one destroyed just now, it came alone. The others were mere iron-grey specks among the white stars in the distance.

"This is intended to be our last stand, Antheia."

"How in the name of the Old Earth do you know my name?" She turned her head to face him, looking comically shocked.

"I have my ways. You should know that by now."

She half-smiled as a forlorn look entered her irises. "Hm. I guess I will never know them, will I?"

"That's why we aren't fighting. That was merely a scouting party." He stated very simply.

"Excuse me?" She placed a questioning hand on her hip.

"Not them, anyway." He said, gesturing with a nod to the pods, which were coming closer by the minute. Thick smoke poured from their chemically-fuelled engines.

"Then what _do_ you propose we do, Ash? As much as I'd like to," she stepped toward him and set a finger on his arm before putting it to her Fang, "I'm not standing idly by while my brothers and sisters die around me."

"Don't be absurd." He stepped towards the gallery's viewing screen and pressed a sharpened metal claw on his index finger into it. It squealed as he tracked it across, following a much larger pod that seemed to eclipse the others, now that he had noticed it. " _That_ is what we want."

Antheia afforded him a small laugh as she resumed her knife spinning routine.

"You want to go straight for Hek? Didn't your own sword teach you that lesson well enough already?"

He ran his finger along his abdomen; underneath the armour was a scar that prickled when he touched it. "I'm better now. His guard won't be able to defend him, now that they have an ample distraction." What worried her was the shark-like smile that crept along his mouth.

"This won't work, Ash. Four of you couldn't handle him, what makes you think you can take on him alone? You can't let him win like this. We go," she took his hand and clasped it in hers, "as _one_."

He let out a sigh. The pods were only a few hundred meters from the Dojo's exterior. Time for chat was not something they had. He spun on his heel and set for the elevator to the main lobby.

"Well, we'd better get going then, hm?" He proposed. She followed him in, and they descended, with nothing but silence between them.


	22. Chapter 21

The thundering of the pods resounded through the gallant halls, round the golden archways and into the ears of the awaiting Tenno. The air round the gates shifted and dust was thrown up onto their helmet visors as the thundering continued, but this was not the landing pods anymore. This was the sound of marching, the sound of a thousand half-men pounding their steel boots into the ground to die their inevitable deaths in battle. What mattered was if any survived see victory. The numbers could always be replaced.

Umbra and one of her fellow Sisters were pressing their hands to the shimmering air in front of them, creating a barrier that denied any viewers knowledge of what was waiting on the other side. It fell like a waterfall on their side but to any onlookers it looked and sounded exactly the same.

"Well, here they come. Not exactly a bunch of lookers, are they?" The Ember stretched, arching her back in a feline way with one hand loosely gripping her Strun. The charred body of a marine lay shredded under its maw

"This wasn't how I planned to die." The Volt was badly wounded, with one arm broken and limp by his side. A Sicarius trembled its silver head in his hand as he tried to keep it from shaking. Electricity drizzled along the sides of his frame like a leaking spigot.

"Oh, and what would be better than this, Alessandro? In your sleep?"

"I prefe-"

"You know what? I don't need to know, because you aren't dying here. I'll get you some of that Corpus-imported stuff from Venus later to help with the arm, if you want."

"I... That would be nice."

"Come on." She beckoned with her hand and lightly slapped him on the back. He managed a small smile.

Orion stared at the entrance down the hall with narrowed eyes. Shadows marched with the sound of incoming marines on the walls, but they were bigger tenfold, and seemed to multiply the sound. In the heart of a normal being, terror may have gripped him. Normality disgusted him.

"They should hurry up. I don't like to be kept waiting."

"Let them make their move, I say." The Frost spoke from behind him, for once paying his full attention to Orion. "We can show our hand once they show theirs; this is a game that Hek plays. He delays the main advance to peel through the cowards. He wants us to be demoralised. He wants us to be reckless."

"He can try to do whatever he wants, but I'd rather not keep my executioner waiting." Ash injected as much cynicism into that sentence as possible; he didn't want the Frost to hear his last words to be honeyed and warm. It was the alcohol.

"Perhaps they are not so eager. Learn patience, brother." Was that a wink that momentarily graced his grey eyes?

The marines came into view at last. Ash drew Dust its scabbard just as the sword's runes started to glow.

 _Here comes the marching band._

 _It's about time._

 _You seem almost eager to meet your end._

 _You don't listen much, do you, Dust?_

 _More than you think. The Stalker's ship was not one of great interest, so I found listening a good way to pass the time._

 _Sometimes I pity you._

 _Have you grown fond of my presence, Orion?_

 _Somewhat. Don't take it too seriously, I'm still not myself._

 _You'd be surprised._

 _And what do you mean by that?_

 _Ignore me._

They marched in columns, guns robotically tucked into their huge shoulder pauldrons. Umbra was trembling slightly, still visibly shaken by the dreadful murder of the Lieutenant, but she held herself together. Her Sister paid her no heed, instead staring straight at the ever-closer approaching Grineer.

The hall rang with the sound of feet hitting the ground as a single crunch. The Tenno's conversation died into the silence as the two sides stared each other in the face, locked in a contest of nerve unknown to the Grineer.

The Nyxs backed slowly into the walls, hands still raised outward. A particularly grizzled Grineer sergeant with almost human-like grey stubble peppered on his jaw stepped into the alien light of the Dojo and sniffed the air. His grey tongue traced round his greyer lips, moistening them like a fox padding behind a mouse.

"Garsch noves tresk!" He barked to one of the grunts at the back, who timidly jogged over, taking small steps.

The marine was shoved forward before the barrier. The Frost mimicked his movements, coming to a stop right before the shield and drawing a Bolto pistol from its worn holster.

The marine looked round; taking a few nervous steps spurred on only by the sergeant's distancing yells. It rolled its shoulder and readjusted the Grakata in its arms, taking another couple of steps. It was right before the barrier. It must have sensed something, for it took one hand and reached into the barrier, then a foot. The Tenno held their breaths as it stepped through fully and gazed into the sight of the barrel.

" _Tenno, sku-"_

The pistol bucked three times. Three bolts about a hand-width in size flew from its barrel.

On the first shot, the marine's skull shattered as the bolt tore a new hole in the back of its head. The psychic shield went down, and the Tenno weapons came up. The first beats of adrenaline pulsed through the marines' hearts.

On the second, feet started moving. Grineer legs, trained by instinct, began to run and adopt firing positions. The sergeant's vocal chords only just started to strum his ferocious orders.

On the third, triggers were pulled, swords drawn, grenades grabbed from pouches and flung with pins raining down like metallic snowflakes. The air only now started to whistle through the grooves of ancient swords.

Battle erupted. All around the hall, Tenno leapt into battle, slashing apart squadrons in moments. Bullets streaked through the hall, whistling past Orion's ears and pattering against the stone columns that he ran across. He bent his legs into the wall and sprung at a Gunner, Dust poised in front of him. Smoke trailed his movements as it poured forth from the shining runes along its blade. Orion shoved the sword through its armour with a grunt and gracefully leaped over its head. As expected, a shielded Lancer timidly crept behind it, firing short bursts with its Viper. Orion slammed both legs into its face, crushing its helmet and puncturing the shield with the blade imbedded in the Gunner. The pair, stuck together by Dust, wriggled to try and escape, but the blade wouldn't budge. Orion jumped onto the Lancer's neck and snapped it with one foot, the other driving the towering Gunner's face into the ground and leaving a large crack in the floor. He wrenched the sword free, whipping blood against the walls. His eyes found naturally found his next target. He continued.

While Orion fought in the fray of it all, the Ember relied on the brutish power of her Strun to raze her enemies to shreds. Her rounds were modified with a sticky phosphoric solution mixed with the pellets as well as an improved bullet chambering mechanism, resulting in a hellish storm of fire that blew apart anything that entered her range. This, coupled with her frequent fireballs that she threw from her fists that shattered like molten boulders on their targets, gave her the destructive, flame-licked presence of an erupting volcano.

Lightning shot through her side. She barely had time to react before she realised she was being dragged into a group of marines by a Scorpion's harpoon, like a fish with a hook through its cheek being reeled in. She tumbled across the floor and landed flat on her face. The world spun for a moment as she regained control of her limbs. The Ember pressed her hands into the ground in an effort to get up, but was immediately stopped by a savage blow to her shoulder. Her Strun fell to the floor with a heavy _thud_.

She could feel the blood welling and trickling down her back. She needed to get help. The marines around her chuckled as the Scorpion pressed a gun barrel to her neck and forced her head into the floor. She clenched her teeth and waited for the gunshot.

 _BANG!_

She... She could still feel her breathing. Now, when the Ember's heart beat out of her chest and sent shockwave after shockwave through her body, she felt still. Then it dawned on her, breaking like the smile she wore when she felt metal rapidly cooling on her skin.

"Ker dam?!" The shrill voice of the Scorpion sounded off in confusion behind her. "Nekar se!"

A shot entered her abdomen, another in her leg. Her shields barely deflected one that was aimed for her head. The gunpowder-filled breath she took was punched right back out again, and she looked round from the floor to her surroundings. No Tenno were nearby. That was good. Only Grineer, more and more closing in. The battle seemed far away now, on a distant plane. Her chocolate hair was draped across her blood-filled right eye like a closing curtain.

Flames enveloped her, slithering from her ears, her nose, her eyes, her mouth, from every pore in her body. They purified her skin, searing away her eyebrows and setting her hair alight. The bullets in her wounds melted away and dissolved into her burning blood. Her scalding skin stripped her body of her warframe, leaving just her naked, pure, charcoal black figure floating in the middle of a fiery sun. A fiery tornado of flames and wind whipped round her . She hugged herself with blistering arms into a ball as the flames raged and the heat grew and grew. With a final burst of energy, her entire being was consumed by fire, and along with it, her world.

But from the dying star came something greater; a blizzard, white and feral like the wolves of the Arctic. The Frost stood in its centre while violent winds raged around him and blew the Grineer apart, scattering them like mere ragdolls. Some he impaled into the ceiling and walls with gargantuan shards of ice; no blood dripped from their bodies as they died, for it had already frozen in their veins. The globe of ice around him deflected any attempts to breach into the main Tenno formation. The winter's chill embraced the wounded Tenno around him, numbing their vicious pain and allowing the blood to flow slower in a bid to prolong their fleeting breaths. The Trinity rushed to and fro while the Frost gunned down any incoming forces with precise shots from his Soma.

Ash seemed to know where the Frost was to fire, for he effortlessly weaved and ducked between short bursts as if it was a mere reflex. It almost scared him, how Ash managed to kill so efficiently with every stroke, and how he did so without a moment's thought. He needed not to be asked, just given a motive. When he came in he had nothing to him but hatred. Now he was given the tools to embody it. The Frost's almost regretful eyes found the Vauban, who was busy yanking a machete from the shoulder of a Butcher.

 _Vulcan, what have you done to him?_

Laughter sounded over the gunfire somewhere from down the hall. It sounded like something otherworldly, something not quite human, or Grineer, for that matter. Black forms, suited in obsidian with claws protruding from their hands too thin for their arms. They scampered towards the Tenno on all fours, claws scraping over the rattling of guns and the ever-presence of their cackling. One of them bore a bloody crest painted on its shadowy helmet and had torn and stained rags flapping from in-between its armour joints. The faceplates of its fellow Grineer covered its back. It seemed to laugh the least, doing something worse altogether when it leaped at Orion. It growled, like a dog, and slashed its claws at his face. Orion ducked just a fraction too late and its hand smashed into the side of his head, taking half his faceplate with it.

Orion slashed upward with Dust and caught its shoulder pauldron with a satisfying shower of sparks. It swung at him again and smashed the sword out of his hand, sending a buzzing shockwave through Orion's arm. This was no ordinary Grineer. He tried to will Dust to him and cursed when he realised what sword he fought with. His Nikana was still lying among planks of wood in his chamber.

No matter. His gauntlets were sharpened to needle points, so he somewhat stood a fighting chance. The clone pounced; hand outstretched to Orion's throat, and vanished. Orion whipped round. His eyes frantically searched for something. The laughter rose again. Nothing struck him. He felt timidly weak. He dove straight for his sword. His fingers found the grip of the hilt and he rolled over. The maniacal laughter filled his ears as it screeched at him from the ceiling, tumbling down and claws outstretched. It slammed into his ribs, no doubt breaking a few, and began to tear into his armour. Fire branded his skin as it slashed again and again at his chest, now starting to penetrate bare ghost-white flesh. Dark red lined its claws. Any effort he made was in vain, instantly forced aside by the primal strength of the clone.

The pain stopped just as blood started to trickle into the sides of his vision. His eyelids cracked open slightly to stare at the grey blade of a serrated Kama dripping with biological fluid. It was wrenched out and the body was kicked to the side, rasping and spluttering.

Against the harsh light of the Dojo Orion saw the damned, most recognisable helmet of a Tenno he would ever see, one that snatched away his breath in disbelief and relief at once. He would have laughed if his chest didn't hurt so damn badly and if the battle did not still rage around them. The hammerhead-helmeted stranger offered him a hand.

"Too long, my friend. Too damn long." The cocky smile was practically visible from under his helmet.

"Fenrir... how di-" Orion brought his trembling hand up to the Loki's.

"I think you've grown beyond asking _why_ or _how_ , Ash. Decoys, to save you the trouble. Very useful. Come on, up and at 'em." He patted Orion on the back and motioned over to Antheia, who Orion had failed to notice almost dancing through the squadrons of crazed bionic nightmares that were hunting them.

"It's rude to keep the lady waiting, Ash. Go get her." He winked and disappeared into nothingness. Two frantically reloading marines quickly lost their heads while peering from behind a slab of broken masonry.

Orion plunged the blade into the dying Grineer and allowed the life force to drain into him. His chest wounds closed up and his warframe sizzled back over his scars. He grasped the broken edge of his ceramic faceplate and ripped it from his helmet. His blade sucked in fresh air as he pulled it from the still body lying next to him.

 _I saw him before, following you. I thought it would be better for you to find out this way, though. Any other time and you would have killed him._

 _Is that so?_

 _I expected a different reaction. You've changed._

 _Don't tell me. We'll talk later._

 _Later, then._

Orion ran and ran through hellish flames and vulgar spouts of rage onto the other front of the seemingly never-ending battle. Antheia seemed to be having trouble , only barely managing to stave off the two Butchers that chopped and swung at her feeble-looking daggers. Their only mistake was their ignorance, not that they could be blamed. He managed to make it to her just as she ducked under a clumsily-placed swing to her head and plunged the Fang into the weak spot under the Butchers arm. She nimbly stepped round and behind it, taking the dagger with her. Its hot flesh steamed in the air as it collapsed, entrails spilling out pink from under its armour. Her other dagger she threw into the remaining Grineer's chest and looked to finish it off, but she noticed Orion watching her and she stood up to face him.

His hand relaxed on his sword.

"You missed one."

"You sure?" She didn't even have to look as the Butcher stared in horror at its chest, which began to slowly fall apart in a gooey mess of blood and flesh. Orion smirked.

The Grineer numbers thinned, but so did the numbers of the Tenno. Orion could barely count half of who had started the battle. He knew definitely who had died; he had seen their deaths, all too painfully. The Nova, Umbra's fellow Sister, an Excalibur with sheens of metal scraped on his gauntlet... Too many. But now was not the time for grief. He noticed, however, that there was an increasingly large gap in the Grineer defences. A gap that was to be filled by something. Orion rolled his shoulder and gripped Dust more firmly. But so far the real threat wasn't here. He hadn't had fun in a while.

"Antheia."

"Yes?" She replied as she yanked the Fang out of the liquefied Butcher's chest.

"Care to dance?" He asked with a coy smile.

He could imagine her smiling with perfect white teeth as she laughed.

The two found the main battle in the center, near the trading post on the second floor. A Prosecutor was making short work of the Disciples that attempted to strike it, quickly burning away appendages and searing away the courage that once defended them. It cackled under its muffling helmet. Flames roared at the Tenno, forcing them away every time they dared come near it. The sickly sweet smell of fuel choked their breaths as the pair bounded up the stairs. Four marines came to greet them, Grakatas and Karaks raised. How many shots did they manage to fire? Four? Five? Orion didn't care to count. Neither did Antheia. A swift slice across the throat and poisonous shot into the neck from her Tysis took two down. Orion crouched under their barrels and spun round, letting the full force of his legs carry him through and slice them both apart with one fell stroke.

"Brothers, step aside!" Orion barked at the remaining Tenno that hadn't fallen to the Prosecutor's flame-wreathed Amphis.

They reacted instantly, simultaneously flipping back into safety with swords poised.

"Shall we?" She offered with a hidden smile.

He didn't need to answer. The two sprang at the Prosecutor as one, Orion to its left, Antheia to its right. More hellish cackling escaped the confines of the metal grilles it had for its mouth as it raised the cudgel. They jumped for its undersides, both dancing round its every swing and blow. The Amphis spewed fire at them as the Prosecutor's limbs groaned to match their elegant waltz. A nick of armour here, a slashed wire there, but it was getting weaker.

There! Antheia saw an opening in its underarm, where the metallic joints creaked under the force of its massive swings. Under that was a bright yellow light that glowed hotter and brighter as the Prosecutor swung and swung again. Its core.

"Ash!"

"I know."

She found his eyes for just a moment as the Prosecutor brought the Amphis down on him. He sidestepped the clumsy attack and rushed under it. Antheia did the same. She leapt first. She willed the Tysis to fire, and it responded with violent squeezes and pulses as spines whistled out. These spines latched onto the Prosecutor and began to flood its entire system with liquid. The titanic Grineer tried to bat her away, but it found that its augmented limbs did not allow him. They were stuck. The liquid had entered the motors and solidified, freezing the Prosecutor from the inside out with solid bone. Armour plates broke off and exposed its spine and its mouth grille fell apart to display its agonised grin.

Orion took his chance and reversed the grip on his sword as he soared over it. Gravity pulled him down along with Dust, which tore into the Prosecutor's back and broke apart the bony mass that entombed it. With its metallic spine exposed, Orion shoved his clawed hand into its back and ripped the spine out. With a fading croak, the Prosecutor slammed into the ground, dead.

Orion, with the flaming Amphis now extinguished, swore that he felt a little colder.

The Frost was busy fighting his own battles. His Orthos blades clashed time and time again at the daringly ferocious attacks of the Grineer Manic with resounding rings. Sparks flew as the one of the tips nicked its armour plate. It was weakening. Small relief found him in-between his strikes as he found another one at its abdomen. However, even though he was slowly winning this idle slashing of steel, the battle started to tip against the Tenno. The golden gates shook once again as Bombards with Tonkor grenade launchers took up positions at the back of the main formations and tossed pulsing grenades forth. They didn't give yet, but his intuition had taught him to look further than just the present. But his intuition was what now betrayed him.

His concentration had drifted for a split second, and he paid the painful price for it. A powerful sweep at the Orthos cut deep into his hand. He was forced to hold the staff with one hand, the other gushing blood from where the rusty claw had cut into him and sliced through his glove to the white underneath. He held the Orthos with a trembling arm; he had been fighting for too long. He had been warned before that his zeal would be the death of him someday; he just never thought to take it to heart. His ignorance, it seemed, was another regret he would take to his-

 _No. I'm not dying here._

The Manic reared on its jackal-like legs and sprung at him. It batted the Orthos aside with ease. The Frost skidded across the floor, tumbling in a strange embrace with the Grineer half-creature. It tried to go for his throat, but he immediately willed the suit to exhale all the swirling air underneath. It hissed and sprayed deadly liquid nitrogen all across his attacker. Its limbs froze to its armour as it realised in wide-eyed horror that it couldn't move. However, one of its claws was still buried in his gut. Only the cold had kept the pain at bay, until now.

The Frost grimaced as he held its face away with his injured hand; his good one drew a Karyst dagger and plunged it into the helmet, yanked it out, then plunged it back in again. Charcoal black fluid covered his torso as it poured from the Manic's bionic throat and its life rattled away with its breaths. His lungs heaved.

 _Maybe we'll get through this._

He looked at his bloodstained hands. His knees crumpled forward. His vision swam at the edges and the familiar blue tinge that covered his helmet was now gone. His shields would not hold.

 _Just... maybe..._

Someone yelling at him from a battle a million miles away.

" _FROST!_ "

Something hit her in the head, this time a lot harder. Her body was awake before her mind, and when her head caught up, she was splayed across the metal grating with her face hugging the floor.

Ilene sat up. Her fingers dabbed her head and she check for blood, finding none. She rubbed her head and looked up at annoyance at the surgical machine that whirred back and forth, broken. Her fingers felt cold. But at least her fingers _felt_. Her head was numb, save for a constant dizziness and nausea that stuck to her like the ERI fluid slick on her shaven scalp. Her feet were trying to stand up on their own but- oh _god!_ Her legs were not hers - they were white plated metal, shimmering on the sides with lilac energy. She tried to find a memory of any such change, but she found she couldn't remember much at all, except that...

 _The eye._

It was terrible. It stared into her, unblinking. Ilenegrasped her head with both hands. She groaned. She rid the memory from her head and breathed to calm her rising panic.

Ilene heard voices. Voices that talked in a language that wasn't hers. She frantically looked round as the metal clanking of Grineer footsteps got louder. Something to defend herself with. Scalpels? Too thin. Laser drills? Too weak.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit!" She cursed under her breath, uncaring for any formality that she was supposed to keep. No one would hear it, anyway. The ward was empty, save for the machines that buzzed and whirred in her ears like flies.

Her eyes found a warframe, unlike anything she had seen, but it looked to be her size. Hawk's wings were unfurled at its wrists, with a fearsome beak that adorned its helmet. She scrambled to her artificial feet and laid her hand on its chest. She spoke with haste.

" _Lotus, open yourself to me. My feet shall carry your message. My hands shall guide your vengeance. My blade shall hold true, and my gun shall sing your praise. May you never wither, and may your petals bloom forever."_

The warframe edged away from her but opened up nevertheless. The footsteps were right outside the door. Ilene stepped both feet in, then shoved her hands into the glove parts and slotted the helmet hood over her head. The warframe rushed to every part of her body, even down to places that made her squeal in surprise when they slithered over.

The door quietly whispered the marines' arrival. She gritted her teeth as the warframe moulded itself around her lithe body. When it had wrapped itself around her fully, she quickly tapped the button outside the frame holder and stepped back in. It whirled her into blackness and the smell of grease.

The marines took their time, and they didn't seem to have intention of leaving. Ilene couldn't seem to control them, no matter how hard she tried. Her fleeting hopes were dashed, then; her psynapse was gone. But this warframe, what was it? She tried to read where the marines were in the room. One on the operating table, one checking the cabinets and mumbling something. She breathed in, then out, then in again. She wasn't sure if it was the warframe tightening on her throat or just her nerves. The light of the ward nearly blinded her as the panel swivelled round and threw her out. She immediately launched herself into the air towards the marine at the operating table. Her foot landed square on his helmet. Glass shattered in its helmet and it crashed into the table. Ilene landed with nothing but a soft hiss. Remarkable.

The air seemed to hold her and cushion her as she punched the marine in the torso and again in its face. Her strikes never really connected with it; the air seemed to hold the most force as it swam in and out of her warframe. Her fists were a flurry, chopping and smashing with brutal force into its throat. Her confidence grew with the force of her punches and kicks; soon the marine staggered with every blow. The warframe didn't shrink as much now. It was warming to her.

The other marine had noticed the commotion and rushed to its Grakata. It took up aim and fired a few bursts with her in the sights. She didn't react in time, only barely managing to bring her arm up, but the warframe _did._ A nearly invisible barrier of wind shielded her from the bullets, which floated uselessly in mid air. The marine, now realising the futility of his weapon, dropped it and ran to the door.

The door immediately shut, locked in place by the air vacuum Ilene somehow managed to create.

 _So it isn't all gone. I can make this work._

She dropped the lifeless body in her hands and glided over to the marine by the door, who slammed the frame again and again with fear-fuelled strength, crying for comrades that weren't there. It whipped round in terror as Ilene approached it. She rammed its head into the door and willed energy in through her hands. The air obeyed her, swirling round her feet, through her body, around her arms and into her fingertips. The sheer force of the gales that she conjured rushed forth into its helmet like a column before a city's gates, destroying anything that might have been inside. The wind snatched away its dying screams.

She unlocked the door and stepped out into the hallway. This shuttle apparently never made it out. The pilot lay dead next to the entrance to the ward. Ilene looked out to the entrance into the Dojo. She knew what she had to do.

 _I'm coming, Ash._ Her eyes flashed lilac as she began to fly. _Just hang on._

Grahs'tor grinned with giddy glee as her bullet found its target. The bullet entered just through the small slit in that _vermisker_ 's helmet, just like she had been taught. This was not grunt she had killed. A high ranking one. Probably the Warlord. Oh, as she stared down her gritty gun sights, she thought about the promotion she would get, about how her genes would be prized over a million others. She grinned a toothless grin again.

But as she stared into the mesh of camouflage, crimson and flashing steel, she noticed something glittering, moving very, very fast...

The last thing the Grineer sniper heard was probably a faint whispering, then a definite ringing in her oral sensors, then a screaming of razor-sharp metal. A second was all it took. Her partner also lay dead in her own blood, Marelok lying next to her cold bionic hand.

Even though the battle had been raging around him, gunfire painting the room with yellow flashes and blood carving itself into the floor, it only came back to him now. His arm was stretched out from him. He had killed through only instinct.

Orion stared down at the Frost's corpse. He found it hard to imagine a face under that hood, lying dead, cold as it ever was. Those eyes, those eyes the grey of wolf fur, now dead, along with all the others around him. A bullet shattered into his back. He calmly sheathed the Karyst and looked out to his attacker. Another grunt by itself, revolting like the rest.

This grunt was brave, certainly, perhaps under the drug-like influence of heart-pumping carnage and the bravado it felt after finally fighting with its comrades. But Orion had no care for these things.

Orion closed the distance within two clicks to the automatic on its gun. He cut the marine once, just a little, so that it would bleed. Then he slashed off its forearm, so that it bled more. He sliced off its other arm, ignoring its screams. His face held no expression when he separated its torso from its legs. The cut was clean, so the marine stayed on its legs for a few more agonising moments. When Orion deemed its screams too bothersome to listen to, he smashed his fist into its helmet and shattered its brains across the marble floor.

A silence snatched the sound of gunfire from the air and shrouded their ears with a curtain of nothingness. The loudest thing in the room was the absence of anything audible; just the vague ringing in the back of their heads and the drumming of their heartbeats in their chests.

 _The cowards run._

And they did. The Grineer had, with incredibly unlikeness, actually held formation and sprinted further down to the landing pavilion a few hundred metres away. They scurried off behind pillars and dislodged slabs of metal. Not one dared to show their heads.

 _They're not running. They're regrouping._

Instead of feeling what should have been a welcome throb of victory in his chest, Orion sensed only dread. The Tenno immediately began to tend to the wounded and to themselves, picking out bits of shrapnel from their skin and fraying warframe fibres. The Trinity diligently planted wells of life in the bodies of the dead which embraced the Tenno around them and healed those most injured.

 _I feel that this is not the end of your battle._

 _It's almost as if you can read my thoughts._

 _Don't waste time with your petty jokes, Orion._

 _I may need to teach you about sarcasm some day, Dust._

 _I understand your attempts at humour._

 _Oh, do you, now?_

 _I simply do not find them entertaining._

As they ran, Orion found himself entertaining the thought of surviving. Hope curved his lips into a slight smile. But the worst was still to come.

The distinct clacking of Antheia's shoes sounded from behind him. He turned round. Any lightness of mood dissipated immediately as he set his eyes on the scene before him. Blood, although not an unfamiliar sight, drenched the halls, and bodies littered the halls. The putrid stench snaked into his helmet. Antheia stood among them, Fangs dripping, like a thorn-covered rose in a garden of shrivelled weeds.

He had to tread carefully to avoid stepping on any bodies in the field of dead Grineer that surrounded him. One of the bodies was not as deformed, dark or bloody. A rather small figure, with coils round its arms and electricity sparking across its torso. The Volt. Orion kneeled down and tucked his sword behind his back. The back of his hand found the body cold and long gone. His brow furrowed. It hadn't been long since he saw the Volt alive. How long had this strange world of his taken to change? A week? It shocked him still.

"Who's next in command?" Orion sounded very tired. It worried her.

"What do you mean? The Frost-" Her voice faltered when she turned to his corpse. Her grief seemed to radiate through her fingertips, for she fidgeted and clasped and unclasped them constantly now.

"I see."

"Well? Who gives the orders?" Orion asked again.

 _We carry on with the plan. We defend to the last._

Umbra's familiar voice did not seem so familiar anymore. It was drunk with the opium-like after-dream of adrenaline and the pangs of regret she felt for all the dead around her.

The air blew across Orion's ashen hair. His eyes found the disturbance, thundering down the corridor with metal claws for feet. He recoiled when he realised who it was. He barely caught himself. As starkly yellow as the sun's light, with a mask a black as death, it was Hek.


	23. Chapter 22

Not one side dared move. Grineer crosshairs met Tenno scopes and sights, each invisible pair of eyes staring into the other. Hek stood proud in front of his soldiers with a black-toothed grin on his repulsive face. Those beady little yellow eyes found Orion, who leered back with the dozen Tenno that were left behind him. The air found a rare stillness despite the battle of stares being fought in it.

"What is it, Tenno? Nowhere to hide? How more will you run, before you realise your helplessness?!" Hek's barking voice thundered across the hall. He began to stride towards them, each one shaking the ground more and more.

 _We hold our ground._ Umbra spoke to them with a strange calm.

"Do you think your Lotus will help you?! Do you think that anyone, ANYONE, will come to save you?!" His monologue seemed to have its effect on the troops around him; the soldiers now murmured amongst themselves with rising confidence. Orion didn't like it.

"This was all your doing, Tenno." His burning eyes found Orion and flashed with a glint of recognition. "You, the Ash, this is what _YOU_ DID!"

Now the Tenno started to have their own quiet utterances of doubt; all eyes bore into him. Orion felt sick. He knew what was to come.

"That's right, Tenno. He led me right here. Did you not listen, Ash? Didn't I tell you that I would pay you a little _visit?_ "

Horrible memories sliced into him. Death, swords, blackness, blood... Fire. He felt his blood ice over.

"Quiet, you... you bastard! My friends are dead, by your hands!" Orion's temper crackled, nearing the brink ever so quickly.

"Do I upset you? Is it the fact that you are useless, that this is all for _nothing?!"_ Hek jeered at him, laughing that horrid laugh every so often. "You've lost, Ash, accept your fate with this so-called Tenno _honour_. You can't change what will happen! I win. You. Lose."

"No... this will _not..."_ Orion was losing his voice. All thoughts flew from him. His resolve crumbled. They couldn't die, he realised. He didn't care if it seemed cowardly. To think of one's death as a good thing, that was insane. He wasn't crazy.

"Tell me, Ash, if you will not defend your home, what will you fight for? What do _you_ believe?!"

 _What... is this?_

"Why do you continue? What is it? Tell me!" The soldiers were gaining resolve, slowly coming out of cover and following their leader across the landing, who crunched dead bodies under his feet.

"I..."

The Tenno readied their weapons, but didn't fire. Some unholy force stopped them. Fear.

"How long will it take? _Answer me!_ "

Hek's shotgun waved dangerously close. The other Tenno took cautious steps back, rifles still gripped anxiously forward. Orion was rooted to the spot. His legs would not obey him.

"Ash, move! He'll kill you!" Someone urged him over the voice-link. It didn't matter.

"You... what are you...?" Orion went down on one knee, one hand steadying him. The memories drove through him again and again, repeating the gruelling torture of witnessing the Rhino, the Oberon, Fenrir, again and again. The intel room... The prisoner...

"Shit. Get back! Find cover, everyone. If he wants to die, then so be it."

Umbra hissed to the rest. They fell back all too eagerly.

"I am what you will never have, vermin. Power." Hek's thunderous footsteps came to a stop. His shadow covered Orion's defeated expression. His heavy shotgun forced Orion's head down.

 _Orion, I believe you are ready._

 _Ready for what, Dust?_

 _I was the Nyx that held this sword. My spirit lives on. I can search your mind and see things you never could on your own. You were blind before, but I believe you are now ready for what I have to show you._

 _I can't move, Dust, I don't kno-_

 _Hush._

Time halted. The metal clicks that chambered another shell into Hek's shotgun rang all around Orion's head. His vision drew him from where he knelt and threw him back to the scene he knew all too well. His eyes stung. Tears immediately welled in his eyes as curtains of smoke draped his vision. He could breathe through it, he realised.

His naked toes curled on the burning earth as he walked through, but to his surprise, his feet did not burn. The ground felt lukewarm, like the soft embrace of the baths back home. But where _was_ home? For some absurd reason, Orion felt some sort of attraction to this place, even though it stank of death and scalding smoke. The smoke. It cleared within moments. His eyes relaxed and lifted their teary veils. The edges of the buildings, the outlines of the bullets, the after-smell of carnage; each as crisp as snow. But the only snow here was black; the floating remains of paper screens and charred splinters of wood. Orion slowed his footsteps. A figure, with white, glinting teeth...

 _Not this time_.

Orion found himself running, and he realised then that he _could_ run. Whatever previous binding had broken loose and shattered. This was his reality. The figure was drawing closer to him, step after step. Nothing else mattered. Orion must have run a mile, but that silhouette was right in front of him, hidden only by the strangely hazy smoke that plumed from the leaking canisters and bodies alike that littered the ground. Orion stopped before the wall of black. It licked at his feet and reached for his face. He leapt into it and slammed into something he couldn't see. He tackled with the stranger and tumbled down the hill. Smoke let go of both of them and Orion strained his red eyes open.

The fires stilled. The world stopped. The man at his feet, with hatred etched into his face. Orion stared with horrid disbelief as he felt bile creep up his throat. He couldn't breathe. The man, although different, younger, slimmer, with a human body and still a slightly healthy colour to his sadistic smile, was unmistakable in his identity. Orion clasped his chest and got to his legs. He tried to fit air into his lungs. The world slipped away. The shark-like smile could only belong to one man, one disgusting excuse for a man.

"Hek."

The world came back, but it was not the same. Colours were empty shades of black and white. Edges were sharp like knives. The gaping barrel of a shotgun met his face when he looked up to face it.

"Your friends scatter, Ash! It appears you will die with no one by your side." Hek chuckled deeply as he pressed the shotgun to Orion's head.

 _I thought you should know the truth before you die._

 _Thank you for telling me, Dust. I know what I must do._

 _What is your plan?_

 _You'll find out._

His heart burned. His muscles ignited, like the blazing fires of his homes. His lungs drew bitter, hate-filled breaths, like the toxic smoke that choked the lives from his family.

"Hek..." His voice rasped.

His anger bled into reality through his left arm, which hissed with grey vapour like the chemicals that liquefied the lungs of mothers, children and men alike.

"Do you know why I fight?" He found his footing and drew Dust from its scabbard. The runes trailed with ethereal white. The vapour darkened into a near-impermeable haze through every vent in his warframe. Any unnerved observers would see nearly nothing but the crimson red of his eyes striking through like hellish lanterns.

"It's not for money." One leg behind him.

"It's not for the Lotus, either." The other bent in front.

"Do not delay me, Ash. Stop with this!" Hek growled, and slammed a huge fist into Orion's ribcage. He was sent back a few metres, but kept his footing.

"I'm not running from _you_ , not anymore... Hek. My friends, my family. You slaughtered them, like mere cattle." Orion stepped forward, receiving all the gun barrels to his face that he would ever need.

"But the past is the past. You're a twisted man, if I can even call you that. I've found a new family, Hek. Can you say the same? Do you have ones who you love?"

"Love is _weakness!_ It is what killed your father, your _whore_ of a mother, everyone who you ever knew!" Hek roared at him, firing several rounds at Orion but striking none. They clattered into white-hot halves on the floor.

"You're wrong. But I'm not here to argue philosophy with you, filth."

"How dare you?!" Another salvo, another flawless dodge. The smoke spread faster, to every fingertip.

"You may have taken my last home, Hek, but I'll die before I let you destroy this one!" Orion yelled and charged straight at Hek. Hek bounded forward and fired off four shells at once, but hit only empty air. Orion had vanished.

"Strike now, Tenno!" yelled Umbra into the voice-link in the moment's silence.

Orion blurred into view. Not as one, but as _many_. A storm of blades, he teleported across the room in seconds and tumbling vortexes of smoke. His blades did not even register sound with their speed; the marines died with whispers and whistles of sinister steel. Blood spattered across Hek's yellow frame while soldiers died around him.

When the last of the Grineer fell, the Tenno focused their fire on Hek. Their bullets pattered uselessly off his shields like steel raindrops.

The Nekros, not daring to engage Hek in melee combat with his scythe, reached for an Ogris and yanked it from the cold gripping hands of a Bombard's corpse. He shouldered it and fired three rockets that screeched to their target. The first barely registered, the second staggered and the third nearly knocked Hek to his side. Hek grunted and swivelled back to his assailants.

" _Kill them, all of them!"_ Hek screamed. Rocket pods appeared from his back and fired into the supports holding the roof together. The great stone collapsed in front of the rest, blocking any way through.

No battle cry replied. Hek was alone. He snorted and looked to his soldiers. They lay dead. The Ash... where...

Orion dissolved into the air, right in front of Hek. The Grineer general had his weapons pointed elsewhere; he was defenceless. Orion cut down and across, but Hek managed to jump back within an inch of his steel. Orion disappeared again. Hek brought his mask up and jumped backwards again, landing hard and shattering a fallen column. In the corner of his vision the shadows shifted. The piercing screech of steel rang through Hek's ears. He looked round and saw Orion in front of him. He brought his cannon up, but stared in horror as it fell to the ground, parted cleanly in two. A Loki reappeared beside him, a Kama dangling at his side.

"You... I killed you!" Hek yelled in disbelief.

"Evidently not, _mise'rum_ , or your gun would still be intact." Fenrir sneered back.

Hek growled and spat at the ground.

"Do you think you are WINNING?!" He roared as he swivelled his shotgun round.

Fenrir reacted first. Orion jumped too late. The shrapnel shattered on his body and blew apart his shields. A stray sliver caught the top of his eye. He bit into his teeth as he tried to pick it out. The gash went deep. Orion flicked the shrapnel out and carefully wiped away the blood pooling in his eye socket.

"Did you _really_ think it would be this easy?!" Hek yelled once again.

Orion's lip lifted into a snarl, and he jumped up again. Dust guided him to where he needed to strike, but the cuts never made a scratch.

"You can't kill me, Ash!"

Orion winced when the sword connected again. The force sent an invisible wave down Hek's frame and rippled his strike back through him. His arm flew out wide, and he fell, flailing like a puppet in the hands of its manic master. Orion landed on the ground with a pained groan. Fenrir reached under his chest and hoisted him back up.

"You are not alone, brother. Figure it out. Deep breaths. _"_ Fenrir's voice was unerringly calm, one hand on Orion's shoulder. Orion had rare doubt at the back of his eyes. "I'll keep him distracted, don't you worry."

"Alright." Orion breathed, once in, once out. In, out. The world found a bit of its colour again.

Orion shut his eyes, ignoring the pain from the wound in his forehead. Words from what seemed like eons ago trickled warmly into his mind.

" _Close your eyes. Steady your breathing."_ One foot in front

 _ **Remember, Orion.**_

" _Your eyes merely show you what happens."_

 _ **You were there.**_

" _Every footstep, every tiny movement."_

 _ **You saw.**_

" _My mind's eye is now open, and I will help you open yours."_

The inconsistency. The buckle in his joint, the imperfection. So the bastard hadn't thought to fix it. Under his arm, just remember, at the small point, in that small measurement of time.

"Ash! I'm here!" That voice, the one that called to him, he knew that voice. Auburn hair, lilac eyes...

"Ilene." The light blinded him at first. He squinted slightly to see a warframe draped in white, with streaks of red and blue, speeding towards him. It landed gracefully, with almost no sound, next to him.

 _Air. So this is the Zephyr I've been hearing so much about._

"You are not supposed to be here." Orion watched Hek's movements as he expected his pupil's reply.

"I'm so sorry, I just woke up and I knew I had to help and they killed everyone an-"

"Hush, now. You chose to fight by me, so I will treat you with the same respect as anyone."

She picked up a Karak from the ground and listened intently. Orion began to move, hands on his sword. His legs carried him into a run.

"There is a flaw in Hek's design. One chink in the armour, where the shields do not work as they should. The tunnel in the wall of Troy." He pointed.

"I... Yes, I see it." She carried on behind him. They were close and felt the heat of Hek's rage.

"You control the air. Fenrir will give you an opportunity. Send a squall into that joint and tear it apart. I will follow."

"You got it." He felt her beaming under her helmet, then that furrowed brow of determination she always wore to impress him.

Fenrir sensed her coming. He flipped over one of Hek's joints and slashed across him, causing his arm to raise. He swung at the Loki, who seemed to be feeling the effects of his distractions. Ilene dashed forth and created a turbulence of wind in her hand. It raged through her fingertips and screamed forth, straight into the joint. It buckled straight away. Hek yelled in surprise and staggered back. Orion carried through and shoved the sword up into the metal framework. Dust whispered through the metal. Wires came loose and sparked like fiery spitting snakes.

"You... you haven't won yet."

Two small limbs unfolded from his hulking torso. Hek leaped forward and crashed down in front of Orion. There was a smile playing across his diseased teeth. Orion tried to evade, but his legs would not respond. The two lightning rods on Hek's arms coursed with snakes of violent electricity that arced and hissed round Orion's legs, constricting him and shackling him to the ground. He couldn't move.

The shotgun came round. All Orion remembered was cold steel, an eardrum-shattering gunshot, and the feeling of oxygen still in his lungs. The feeling of air, ruffling his unkempt hair. Fenrir lay where he had lay, blood spurting from his back and his warframe ripped to shreds.

"Fenrir!"

"Orion, listen..."

"Fenrir, you fucking idiot, you didn't have to-"

"Don't be a fool... Orion. That's... what I'm here... for..." His breaths left him soon after. Orion heard no whispers in his helmet. Dead silence answered over the voice-link.

Those were his last words. Orion hated to hear them. Fenrir didn't have the right to die now. _Not now._

"Ash! Hang on just a bit longer! We can get round this!" Antheia's welcome voice entered his helmet. He winced. He wiped his eyes of grief and looked round, no expression in them. The debris was piled high, offering no means of entry or, for that matter, escape.

"Leave, Antheia. Now." Orion felt no obligation to make conversation. Hek was recovering. A shotgun chamber snapped behind him.

Orion drew Dust. Light shined from its every opening. The runes spoke their ancient warning with trails of smoke. He soared through the air, eyes narrowed. The flare of shotgun shells flickered by his right, but he paid it no heed. Hek raised his arm to defend against Orion's onslaught. One time he struck, twice, three times. On the fourth the sword cut clean and severed the metallic joint, which dangled uselessly from fraying cables. The shotgun clanged to the floor. Two arms left.

Orion landed softly on the balls of his feet, and then bought himself distance through a graceful handspring. No longer did his blood pump with the raw adrenaline that his body craved. He felt in control. The sword in his hands felt part of him. An extension of his will.

 _Make this count._

 _I will._

Orion ran straight for Hek's legs and slid under his groin while running his blade along the suit's towering metal legs. Sparks cascaded down as he struck again. The third time, when Hek swiped at him, Orion vanished in a wisp of smoke and materialised before Hek's blotched face. What made Orion frown was that Hek's face wore nothing but a smug grin.

It happened in moments. His gut exploded with pain as Hek's arm ran straight through and hooked itself into him. Hek's grin grew wider.

Hek brought Orion closer to his face, and snarled.

"Your bloodline dies with you. No one will have to bear you filth-ridden blood in their veins."

Orion, now the puppet again, was swung round on the point to face out to the battlefield. Bodies, Tenno and Grineer alike, carpeted the floor. Debris was scattered across the halls like petals. Fire ate through the remains of a charred body lying in a crater. The Nova's pure white helmet was shattered, revealing the fiery red hair underneath.

"Look at who you let die. Look at what you couldn't save. You are pathetic, just like the rest. You will die a failure." With that, Orion could hear the whirring of a blade behind his head. His neck buzzed with sick anticipation.

Orion didn't cry. He knew what was to come. What could he do? A final act of defiance, perhaps. Hek would not kill him. It was a stain on his legacy.

He looked down to Dust. Hek was right behind him. Perhaps, if he...

 _I see what you want to do. I cannot stop you._

 _One last request. Please._

 _Very well. You will live on in me, Orion._

He reversed the grip on his sword and positioned it in front of him. Only a moment. His chest burned as the sword quivered in his fingers. Fond memories came to mind. He decided against dwelling on it. The whirring was right by his head now. He grasped the blade tighter. He plunged it in. Pain flooded through every part of him. He felt his heart rupture, his lungs fill with blood.

 _End it._

Even his eyes hurt as he looked round to see the beady eyes of Hek roll back into their skull, gazing forever at the blade shoved in his forehead. The Terra frame buckled at the knees and collapsed. Orion felt a final wave of pain that nearly sent him under when the titan fell to the floor. He held on just a bit longer.

"Antheia..."

"Orion, you bastard, why? You-"

"I remember what you said. About how life is... funny. _La vie est drôle._ "

She stayed silent.

"Do something for me..."

"I hate you." She sobbed.

"When things are back to normal... have that drink... but leave me some. I might come to-" Violent coughing racked his frame. Blood trickled from his mouth.

"To finish it off."

His vision faded. The last thing he saw was the lone sword, lying among a hundred broken blades.


	24. Epilogue

The ravens did not sing. Thanatos found himself shrinking slightly as he stepped into the confines of his chamber. It was exactly how he'd left it; the branches still swayed in the dead air, the candles flickered with withering light and the ravens… well, that was what bothered him. Everything was as it was, yet everything had changed. He padded to the center of the room and knelt. He didn't bother with the "formalities". The ravens seemed relieved.

"Demand."

Silence. He wasn't entirely surprised, but it irked him.

" _Varys keri'stal._ This was not the agreement. I was to come here on my own terms, by my own risks. You were to stay where you _belonged._ "

The room kept its quiet. Thanatos only grew more enraged. Emotion was not his strong suit, but he did not care for any modesty now.

"What have you _done_?! My friends lay dead on the ground which I walk; their blood stains the air I breathe! Why must you interfere in these mortal matters, _urkas'mer?_ " A sudden rage overcame him and forced his clenched fist into the ground.

It left him through his deep breaths as he stared into the catacombs below. Whispers from the entrance trailed into his ears. He quickly withdrew his hand and stood up. A shallow movement near the mocking walls disturbed the air and the sharp smell of candle smoke drifted into his nostrils.

"Demand. Reveal yourself, coward."

The walls hissed at him. Immediately he saw the familiar erratic dancing among the shadows. So it had finally decided to convenience him.

"You betrayed our Mistress when you took on your mortal form, Thanatos. Our laws do not apply to lifewalkers. What happened was merely Her will. Their names were spoken, and so it came to pass. There is nothing illogical or immoral of it." The voice appeared more relaxed in tone, but Thanatos found its forked tongue mocking him through those deceptively crafted words.

"Do not pretend to lecture me on such things, Arta'kas. I refuse to serve an order that kills the innocent." Thanatos boldly stepped forward to the entrance of the Hallways. The whispers grew ever so slightly louder.

"This is your mortal body, doing this to you. You don't realize what you are saying."

The bastard was trying to persuade him.

"Don't try to deter me from what I think. I am not some animal that you can drag by a rope into your slaughterhouse filled with fleeting lies. I have realized who I serve, _what_ I serve. No more."

"You've lost your mind." The serpentine voice sounded… shocked.

"I wish to walk this plane, and to never return to it again. Leave my corpse to the ravens. They have served me better than you ever did."

No answer came. Thanatos looked to the ravens, who cocked their heads in confusion. He nodded, and they obeyed him. A cascading shower of black wings engulfed the candles like night swallowing the dwindling stars. When they swooped back up to their bare perches, the candles shone no more.

Three days had passed.

The solemn notes of a mellow flute still hummed in the back of Antheia's mind. The tune was simple, but elegant, a melody that caressed the ears and soothed the saturated grief that blotched her mind. The procession was a simple one; the Tenno were not known to be celebrators of death, and so brief words were said while tear stained faces watched the capsules close and be cast out, swallowed by the Void that created them.

Antheia sat in Orion's empty chamber. The bottle still had some alcohol inside, to about a third. She had drank a bit, but either out of the nauseating grief mixing with its bitter taste, or the heartbreaking memories she felt when she reluctantly gulped it down, she decided not to finish it. There was some immortal presence about it. She hated him. She hated that she hated him. It was a rabbit hole that she constantly tumbled through, looking this way and that, but she never found a way out. No amount of drinks in bottles would make let her shrink into nothingness, so that no one could see her. Yet here she was, sat at the makeshift bench made by his hands, where their only pleasant conversation as people took place, with a bottle in hand that said " _Drink me."_

All those years ago, when she was barely a woman, when she wept for days on end just to keep the pain appeased. She remembered it with stark detail, about every rotten procedure and horrific experience the void had given her while she had to grin and bear it. Then they expected her to come out normal, to be like every other Tenno in the Clan. She was a child of pity, but Orion had seen to that. Even though she still feared for her life when she went into the field, and even though she had to bear the painful responsibility as a leader in her initiation mission, Orion had seen to that too. She looked at herself now. What did she see? She saw the welcome yet alien sights of the Dojo, of a sudden break in her reality. A little girl crying her eyes out over trivial matters. Everything was as it was, yet everything had changed.

She took another swig of drink and stared down at the sword lying discarded among the other rubble. Its runes gave no light. She had never touched its handle, perhaps to preserve whatever touch Orion had when it was still gripped in his dead arms. She shook her head to dissipate the oppressing memories. She set the bottle down. Her gloved hand initially reached for its grip, but she held it there. After a brief moment of consideration, she willed the warframe to retreat its reach to expose her pearly white skin. She then took hold of the blade and studied it, one finger balancing the blade on its side and the other cradling the grip with the utmost gentleness.

"What the hell were you thinking, Orion?" She whispered meekly to herself.

 _Of you, Antheia._

Her hand just managed to cover a shriek, perhaps of joy or surprise, or a strange mixture of both.

"You're… still alive?" She whispered again, but this time someone listened.

 _Not entirely. But if anything, I think I won over Hek. At least that bastard won't be getting up again._

"I don't know what… I don't-"

 _Don't fret, Antheia. I'm not completely dead. I'm just not… here._

"Orion, it's so horrible, I don't know what we're going to do! The Dojo is destroyed, our Beacon is out, we may as well be dead in the eyes of the others."

 _Keep yourself together. You aren't going to die. It will be a while, but you'll be found. You can leave this place, start anew, maybe find a partner. There's someone for everyone, Antheia._

"I don't care about all that, Orion. Don't you get it? I-"

 _Don't waste your time on hope. It's dust, as far as I'm concerned. The time you have is precious, and it would do you good not to waste it with me._

"Stop it! You… you can't do this to me! Not again, not fucking again!" She swore, screaming at the sword that she hacked and sliced into splintered practice dummies and broken woodwork.

 _You're past this now, Antheia. You and I both know that this is folly. An existence like this is not what is meant for me._

"No…"

 _I was meant to die here, and I don't plan on changing Fate's plans anymore. Goodbye, Antheia, and say goodbye to Ilene too. Tell her she's done well, and that a mentor could not ask for a better student._

"Please…"

 _I'm sorry I couldn't finish that drink._

"Orion, don't…"

…

"Orion?"

No answer. She sighed.

"And you're gone, just like that."

She surprised herself with a small chuckle and a fading smile.

Her hands played with the blade, running her hands down its smooth grooves and feeling the miniscule bumps of its mysterious manuscripts. She angled it against the White Sun's mesmerizing light that pooled in front of her. It glinted so strangely, like the metal was sprinkled with the essence of the stars themselves.

"Antheia!" Ilene's ponytail dangled by her gleaming smile as she poked her head round the door. Antheia jumped slightly, broken from her trance.

"Oh, Ilene, it's… it's you. How can I help you? How are your legs?" She gazed into Ilene's lilac eyes as she approached. They were filled with a happiness that Antheia couldn't understand, given the events of the past few days.

"They're fine, thanks. I've been training a bit, you know, getting used to this thing. Pretty nifty, I'd say," she trotted over, yet her feet didn't hit the ground once. She was more like her sister than she realized. "Anyway, the Vauban's been working his backside off getting that Beacon in gear for the past few days, and he thinks he's got it! We can get out of this place, at long last!"

 _We're leaving?_

"Oh! That's… that's excellent."

"I know, right?" Ilene bent over with a wider smile, but a closer look at Antheia's expression seemed to dampen her spirits. "What's up with y-" Ilene bit on her tongue when she saw the sword, cradled in Antheia's precious hands.

"He isn't coming back, Antheia."

She expected Ilene to say that. She had expected herself to say that, but out of some forlorn longing, she decided to cling onto false hope for a little while longer. But what was hope, if it was merely dust? Antheia sighed, but a small weight was lifted from her chest. Breathing came easier, and calmer, to her now. She looked up at Ilene and smiled. She wasn't sure why, but she smiled, and she felt glad.

"I know." Antheia stood up, took one last look at the blade, then sheathed it and set it against the bench.

"Did he, well, say anything?" Ilene obviously tried to sound sincere, but Antheia found the childish curiosity hidden under.

"Yes, he did, actually." Antheia walked with Ilene's footsteps. For once, she found herself not in a hurry. "You did well, he said, and that he… he was proud of you." Her thoughts and speech became entwined as she drifted into the memories of the past hour.

"I'm truly honored, I thought that he would be critical, or he wouldn't say something like that!" Ilene fiddled with her ponytail as the two approached the door.

"He was a good man, Ilene, even if he didn't sound like it. I heard it in his voice. He was at peace." Antheia mused as she forced aside the door stuck in the frame by a dislodged peace of rubble.

"That's good, I guess." Ilene stepped through before her, but stopped when she heard Antheia's footsteps not following hers.

The Saryn looked back into the chamber, taking in the all-too familiar sight of the splintered dummies, the perch near the westward wall, the makeshift bench to the right. Orion's Nikana hung in two red looping clothes tied to the scaffolding. The broken slant glinted in the shadows.

Her eyes finally settled on the bottle and the sword, sat next to each other, just like old friends. She gave a melancholy smile and turned into the doorway as the station covered the light and the chamber faded into darkness.

The two made their way through the damaged, crumbled and decimated remains of the Dojo's many walls and columns, but their conversation was surprisingly light-hearted. They spoke of possible futures, of the exciting prospect of a new beginning, and most of all, their fortune to have survived the slaughter. But after this came the inevitable hollow silence that followed when they recalled the horrific scenes of battle that were still fresh in their mind, despite the time that had passed. Too little time, for anyone's comfort.

Antheia led the way through a small maze of rubble blocking a hallway, grabbing the corner of a particularly big slab and heaving it out the way. It threw up dust into their face as they continued through. A few more tenacious climbs of stairways for Antheia, yet a literal breeze for the newly crowned Zephyr, and the Beacon's light shone warmly on their faces through the broken doorway. The observatory and the viewing gallery were miraculously undamaged. Upon closer notice, Antheia found that the area had been practically untouched; a lighthouse against the sea of destruction around it. And what a lighthouse it was, shining brighter than ever that bathed the approaching Tenno with an awe-inspiring white light.

"Ah, you're finally here!" The Vauban turned to the pair's arrival, red-faced and evidently more tired than usual. His gruff voice was a welcome one to hear.

"I hope we didn't make you wait too long, Vauban." Antheia still held him in high esteem, it appeared.

"No, no, of course! The Beacon has been repaired, as you can see, thanks to the assistance of the lovely Umbra here." He gestured to the Nyx with a curt smile, and then turned back to the mesmerizing spinning of the tuning dials circling round the beam.

"The pleasure was mine," She replied with a respectful nod, then turned to Antheia with a hint of a smile, which immediately dissipated when she saw Ilene. The two evidently would always find a reason to quarrel as siblings, no matter how much Antheia tried to intervene. She stifled a sigh and walked closer to the Beacon.

"It doesn't feel like three days. Are we really going to leave this all behind?" Antheia asked doubtfully. She began to walk towards the huge glass pane of the viewing gallery, the clacking of her heels echoing into the empty silence over the soft hum of the Beacon.

"I thought that this place was a bit dull, to be honest. Too much attention to royalty, and not enough flair. I think it's the colors." Umbra remarked. "In any case, I think three days has been quite enough for you to say your various goodbyes and whatever else you see fit. And although I appreciate that it's been a hard time for us all recently," she said, grabbing the attention over the conversation of the Trinity and Nekros, who were talking amongst themselves while observing the recurring damage reports on holographic screens. "I'm afraid to say that all the supplies we have are expended, since whatever we had were sent off with the escape shuttles. Do not worry, though, for the clan of Seven Willows has been so kind as to offer us temporary accommodation, or permanent for any who may want to _leave_ ," she noted with particular venom, "in return for us helping them know the fate of their prototypes at the Orokin Derelict."

"That's good to hear, Umbra." Antheia said dreamily as she came to a stop towards the edge of the screen and looked out to the Void.

"What's gotten into you?" asked Umbra, curious.

"Oh, it's nothing. Everything's fine, now."

Antheia truly smiled, then, for when she gazed at the pure, shimmering stars, she could see that their hunter had joined them once more.


End file.
